Throughout the last decade wars have created a certain interest in reflection upon rights, justice and the causes for which people may or may not be killed. Soldiers are expected to make decisions about life and death in extremely difficult circumstances and complex situations during war. With conflicting obligations, they are forced to choose between orders, duty and ethical values in situations where not all can be met at the same time. Scholars in military ethics argues that ethical challenges and dilemmas can be overcome by using ethical reasoning processes such as moral judgement, moral competence and through different moral principles in the conduct of war. This study investigates how Swedish soldiers reason between moral dilemmas they might encounter in their professional practice and aims to explore if there is a conflict between their moral obligations and duty. It aims to improve the understanding of how Swedish soldiers justify the use of lethal force and obeying orders, and what underlying ethical and moral factors that affect their judgements and justifications. Qualitative scenario-based results show that their moral judgements are based foremost on consequentialist grounds, with good moral competence to adapt their judgements when faced with moral dilemmas. Subconsciously they follow the rules and moral principles of war, putting great emphasis on their trust and dependence on fellow soldiers as well as higher military bodies, although they are likely to disobey orders when it doesn’t seem morally justified.

Department of International Relations School of Social Sciences / The formulation of International Law has been greatly driven by Western principles. These principles have been applied to the world at large as a result of the continuing hegemony of the global north. Consequently, what is deemed to be just and unjust, legitimate and illegitimate in international relations is dictated by these set standards that have been reified throughout history. Sovereign states, as realist theorist tend to emphasize, are at the core of international relations. One of the basic premises of Realism is that the absence of central authority in the international system is bound to lead to conflict. Various international relations theorists have contributed to this literature in their attempts to unpack causes, solutions and justifications for war. The United Nations Charter provides perhaps the most concrete guidelines and codifications of proper state conduct in the pursuit of peace and order and the resolution of conflicts. However, with the progression of history, the nature of conflict in international relations has experienced various changes. One of these changes worth analysing is the shift away from states as single most important actors in a conflict-prone international context. As a matter of fact, the recent history of international relations has been marked by the rise of non-state actors. This research paper seeks to investigate this shift by revisiting Just War Theory against non-state actors in conflict in Africa using the cases of the Mai Mai Bakata Katanga in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Pirates in Somlia’s Gulf of Aden.

The development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) for military purposes are increasing rapidly in many parts of the world. Military powers are driving programs aimed at the advantages that AI can generate. Simultaneously, ethical questions arise concerning autonomous military systems. This study aims to provide clarity on how future Swedish officers with different backgrounds within the profession relate to the ethical issues that accompany the use of autonomous weapon systems. In this study, the respondents are presented with two fictitious scenarios based on the principles of distinction and proportionality, describing ethically problematic attacks that affect civilians. In each scenario, respondents are asked to take a stance on attacks carried out with different degrees of autonomy. The results of the study show that future officers consider the ethical defensibility of an attack to decrease as the degree of autonomy in the weapon system used increases.

This thesis considers the issue of the Responsibility to Rebuild in International Law. It posits that the R2R must be re-elevated to significance as a conceptual, normative, and functional element of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), with its institutional homes in the United Nation’s framework and the Secretary-General’s function adequately articulated. In most instances, the 2009 three-pillar R2P framework functions effectively, but it has the flaw of burying and overlooking the critical value of the initial ICISS third pillar, the responsibility to rebuild and reconstruct war-ravaged communities’ threshold of viability and self-sufficiency. This thesis draws some crucial insight from the significant international interventions of the twenty-first century and recalling the scope in which R2P was first conceived to illustrate the unique characteristics of its contribution to global politics or international policy. This thesis addresses the question of who should rebuild after a war. The ‘Belligerents Rebuild Thesis,’ which suggests that those who have been engaged in the battle - including the victor, just belligerent, unjust aggressor, or humanitarian intervener - should be charged with the responsibility of rebuilding, is held by many leading proponents of the importance of jus post-Bellum for Just War Theory. On the other hand, this thesis argues that there is a mutual, international responsibility to rebuild that should be delegated solely based on the agent's capacity to rebuild rather than the belligerents. / Graduate / 2022-08-09

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Analysis of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and their actions in the 1970s and 1980s offer insight into their use of just war theory in their conflict with the British government and ultra-loyalist Protestant forces in Northern Ireland. The historiography of Irish history is defined by its phases of nationalism, revisionism, and anti-revisionism that cloud the historical narrative of imperialism and insurgency in the North. Applying just war theory to this history offers a more nuanced understanding of the conflict of the Troubles and the I.R.A.’s usage of this framework in their ideology that guided their terrorism in the latter half of the twentieth century. The murders of influential members of British society and the I.R.A.’s statements on these events further posit just war theory as a guiding force of this group. In 1980-1981 the I.R.A. staged hunger strikes in the H Block of Long Kesh Prison and the writings of their leader Bobby Sands continued their use of just war theory in their efforts to be granted Special Category Status. This work concludes that the I.R.A. utilized just war theory throughout this period and that it was a guiding force of their ideology. It contributes a more nuanced analysis of just war theory and its applications to the I.R.A.’s struggles against the British. Ultimately, it demonstrates how this theory was used by this insurgent movement to claim legitimacy, defend their actions, and frame their anti-imperialist movement as a necessary means to combatting British forces.

States regularly use fear of terrorist threats to gain support for domestic political agendas and promote geostrategic interests. Consecutive U.S. presidents have cited the theory of the just war to defend these policies and particular violations of national sovereignty. Those doubtful of whether existing threats justify violations of privacy and territorial integrity also use fear -- of corruption, mission creep, and unintended consequences -- claiming that such interventions are a cure worse than the disease, yet one about which domestic audiences are easily misled. To combat abuse of moral arguments for the use of force, some in peace and conflict studies advocate military force be restricted to self-defense, per strict interpretation of the United Nations Charter (as in international legal positivism), or restricted completely (as in pacifism). Because the goal of reducing violent conflict is nearly universally acceptable, these varieties of noninterventionism are rarely scrutinized. In social psychological peace research (SPPR) on public opinion, however, positivism and prescriptive pacifism mask the diversity of opinion on whether and when intervention is necessary to curb aggression, prevent atrocity, and/or restore stability in failed states. This project critically examines SPPR's positivistic premises and the political implications of moral skepticism generally. In an intellectual history of the discipline, I contrast scientific emphasis on certainty in the formulation of threat and risk-avoidance with the humanities' appreciation of the ethical implications of uncertainty, also at the heart of just war theory. Taking Albert Bandura's social cognitive theory (SCT) of moral dis/engagement as a case study, I argue that SPPR skepticism of individual citizens' moral judgment implicitly endorses elite or consensus-driven models of social and political change. The determinism, consequentialism, and institutional gradualism of SPPR approaches, I argue, contradict stated progressive aims and the egalitarian individualism behind liberal conceptions of the rule of law and international human rights regime. Using just war's ethical framework and a non-consequentialist Kantian theory of moral judgment, I construct a reasoning model and coding manual for use in public opinion research on international conflict. These instruments operationalize moral dis/engagement in a manner consistent with political liberalism and humanitarian law, including the Responsibility to Protect.

Serving in the military is often a disruptive event in the lives of those who join, precipitating a reassessment of the service member’s ethical sensibilities or, tragically, resulting in lasting moral injury and trauma. The military experience compels them to navigate multiple identities, from citizen to warrior and back. Their religious identity, sometimes rooted in a civilian religious community, can be altered by military participation. Those who find faith during service often adopt one rooted in military culture. Still others find faith after leaving the service, providing a salve for the disruption of military experience. In many cases, religious cultural toolkits provide necessary meaning-making frameworks to make sense of war; however, these same frameworks can exacerbate trauma when moral expectations do not reflect reality, resulting in moral injury. Drawing on a series of inductive, in-depth qualitative interviews with forty-eight veterans and six military chaplains, this dissertation explores how varied religious resources and potentially traumatic events affect the lives of post-9/11 veterans who once or currently identified as Christian. Adding to existing research on moral injury, it traces how military chaplains, ethics education, just war theory rhetoric, and formal religious practice supplied by the military alter the course of service members’ moral lives. As these resources aim and re-aim them at the military’s institutional strategic goals, service members come to inhabit the warrior identity. Amid this new identity and the realities of modern warfare, trauma is likely, and service members must navigate an interruption to their deeply held moral beliefs, narratives, and expectations. After service, lasting moral wounds, traumatic experiences, and a loss of identity can make reintegrating to the civilian sector challenging, thus precipitating or exacerbating trauma. These narrative trajectories reveal how veterans use Christian faith or other systems of meaning-making to understand war and their identities as service members and veterans. Drawing on post-traumatic theologies and feminist and womanist ethics, this dissertation argues that these stories uncover tainted theological frameworks and a military culture in need of redemption. / 2023-11-04T00:00:00Z

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In this essay I examine whether the CIA operatives can be considered as legitimate practitioners of violence in a conflict situation, thus looking through a lens where terrorism is treated as an act of war. This paper does not purport to evaluate and review the legality of targeted killing as a mean of warfare or a tool for criminal enforcement but rather the CIA agent’s status from an international law perspective, specifically humanitarian law. I further examine the role of CIA operatives from a moral perspective. Using the framework set up by Just War Theory I examine whether a CIA operative is regarded as a combatant or a civilian from a moral standpoint.