This book explores how states, scholars and other actors have justified war from early modernity to the present. Looking at narratives of the justification of war in theory and practice, this book offers a comprehensive investigation of the emergence of the modern international order and its normative foundation.

Lothar Brock is Senior Professor of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt and at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. He is co-author of Fragile States: Violence and the Failure of Intervention (Polity, 2012) and co-editor of Democratic Wars: Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (Palgrave, 2006).
Hendrik Simon is Lecturer at Goethe University Frankfurt and Research Associate at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. He was Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Advanced International Theory/University of Sussex (2017), at the University of Vienna (2018, 2016), at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History Frankfurt (2015-16) and at the Cluster of Excellence 'Normative Orders' (2011-12).

• Introduction


• 1: Hendrik Simon and Lothar Brock: The Justification of War and International Order. From Past to Present


• Part I. Basic Theoretical Considerations: On War and Order(s)


• 2: Anthony Lang, Jr.: Politics, Ethics and History in Just War


• 3: Siddharth Mallavarapu: Imperialism, International Law and War: Enduring Legacies and Curious Entanglements


• Part II. The Early Modern War Discourse: A Process of Transformation?


• 4: Anuschka Tischer: Princes' Justifications of War in Early Modern Europe: the Constitution of an International Community by Communication


• 5: Arnulf Becker Lorca: The Legal Mechanics of Spanish Conquest: War and Peace in Early Colonial Peru


• 6: Benno Teschke: Capitalism, British Grand Strategy and the Peace Treaty of Utrecht: Towards A Historical Sociology of War- and Peacemaking in the Construction of International Order


• 7: Oliver Eberl: Kant's Rejection of Just War: International Order between Democratic Constitutionalism and Revolutionary Violence


• Part III. The 19th Century as the Birth Era of the Modern War Discourse


• 8: Hendrik Simon: Anarchy over Law? Towards a Genealogy of Modern War Justifications (1789-1918)


• 9: Lauren Benton: Protection Emergencies: Justifying Measures Short of War in the British Empire


• 10: Isabel V. Hull: The Great War and International Law: German Justifications of Prevention and Pre-emptive Self-Defence


• 11: Aimee Genell and Mustafa Aksakal: Salvation through War? The Ottoman Search for Sovereignty in 1914


• 12: Miloš Vec: Juridification, Politicisation, and Circumvention of Law: (De-)Legitimising Chemical Warfare before and after Ypres, 1899-1925


• Part IV. From the League to the UN: The Universe of Western International Legal Order Revealing its Self-Contradictions


• 13: B.S. Chimni: Peace through Law: Lessons from 1914


• 14: Thomas Hippler: Re-Ordering the World from the Skies? The Emergence and Justification of Aerial Warfare


• 15: Felix Lange: The Justificatory Potential of International Law. National Socialists' Dreams of African Colonies


• Part V. 'Democratic Wars' and the Post-Cold War International Order: Rise and Decline of the 'Liberal Peace'


• 16: Anna Geis and Wolfgang Wagner: 'What We Are Fighting For': Democracies' Justifications of Using Armed Force since the End of the Cold War


• 17: Michael Stohl: The War on Terror and the Law of War: Shaping International Order in the Context of Irregular Violence


• 18: Axel Heck and Gabi Schlag: 'We Are Going to War.' Narratives of Self-Defence and Responsibility in Afghanistan War Documentaries


• 19: Nina Wilén: Justifying Interventions - The Case of ECOWAS in Liberia


• 20: Beate Jahn: Humanitarian Intervention: Justifying War for a New International Order


• Part VI. Alternative Paths: Non-Western Perspectives on the Justification of War and International Order from Past to Present


• 21: Sohail H. Hashmi: The Islamic Law of War and Peace and the International Legal Order: Convergence or Dissonance?


• 22: Paul Robinson and Mikhail Antonov: In the Name of State Sovereignty? The Justification of War in Russian History and the Present


• 23: Manjiao Chi: China's Approach to the Use of Force: A Short Review of China's Changing Attitudes towards the Justification of Humanitarian Intervention


• Paty VII. International Rule of Law: Justifying, Contesting and Perpetuating the Use of Force


• 24: Chris Brown: Justified: Just War and the Ethics of Violence and World Order


• 25: Thilo Marauhn: How Many Deaths Can Art 2 (4) UN Charter Die?


• 26: B.S. Chimni: Justification and Critique: Humanitarianism and Imperialism over Time


• 27: Christopher Daase and Nicole Deitelhoff: The Justification and Critique of Coercion as World Order Politics


• An Attempt at a Synthesis


• 28: Lothar Brock and Hendrik Simon: Justifications of the Use of Force as Constitutive Elements of World Order - Points of Departure, Arrivals and Moving Destinations