Just War scholarship has adapted to contemporary crises and situations. But its adaptation has spurned debate and conversation—a method and means of pushing its thinking forward. Now the Just War tradition risks becoming marginalized. This concern may seem out of place as Just War literature is proliferating, yet this literature remains welded to traditional conceptualizations of Just War. Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert argue that the tradition needs to be updated to deal with substate actors within the realm of legitimate authority, private military companies, and the questionable moral difference between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons. Additionally, as recent policy makers and scholars have tried to make the Just War criteria legalistic, they have weakened the tradition’s ability to draw from and adjust to its contemporaneous setting.
The essays in The Future of Just War seek to reorient the tradition around its core concerns of preventing the unjust use of force by states and limiting the harm inflicted on vulnerable populations such as civilian noncombatants. The pursuit of these challenges involves both a reclaiming of traditional Just War principles from those who would push it toward greater permissiveness with respect to war, as well as the application of Just War principles to emerging issues, such as the growing use of robotics in war or the privatization of force. These essays share a commitment to the idea that the tradition is more about a rigorous application of Just War principles than the satisfaction of a checklist of criteria to be met before waging “just” war in the service of national interest.
About the Author :
Caron E. Gentry (Editor)
CARON E. GENTRY is a lecturer at the School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews. She is the author of Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War and, with Laura Sjoberg, coauthor of Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics, and coeditor of Women, Gender, and Terrorism (Georgia).
Amy E. Eckert (Editor)
AMY E. ECKERT is an associate professor of political science at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is coeditor of the essay collection Rethinking the 21st Century: “New” Problems, “Old” Solutions.
Review :
Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert’s volume, The Future of Just War, is a solid and stimulating collection of essays that advances the state of the art of Just War theory. Interest in the justice of war has exploded over the past two decades, and this volume features fascinating, instructive pieces on such cutting-edge subjects as new weapons technologies, ‘postheroic warfare,’ and the aftermath of armed conflict. Interesting, important, and well composed.
Whether it is the runaway use of drones, the lack of accountability of private security firms, or the invention of new categories like 'postbellum' ethics, the scope and significance of the Just War tradition has been trampled in recent U.S. thinking and policy. Professors Gentry and Eckert and their contributors reassert it smartly, fairly, and often courageously in this volume. Every American ethicist, cleric, international-affairs expert, policymaker, and soldier should read this book.
