The Ethics of War and Peace
Targeted Killing: A Legal and Political History by Markus Gunneflo
Targeted Killing: A Legal and Political History, Markus Gunneflo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 290 pp., $110 cloth. Targeted killing is one of the most controversial topics in contemporary legal, ethical, and political discussion, and the literature on it has grown enormously over the past decade. Markus Gunneflo’s Targeted Killing: A Legal and Political History is […]
The Yemen Raid and the Grievability of Lives Lost
Framing the debate about the Yemen raid around whether President Trump is to blame misses other crucial matters that ought to be explored, particularly about whose lives are considered grievable and about the function of grief in the silencing of critique.
Responsibility While Protecting (RwP) and the Intervention in Yemen
The Saudi-led coalition justified its intervention in Yemen with reference to its “responsibility” to protect the people of Yemen, yet the intervention has put more civilians at risk. Drew Thompson argues that RwP, if it were an established norm, may have led to a different outcome.
On War and Democracy by Christopher Kutz
There is a fundamental ethical dilemma confronting all democratic states: if they intervene in violence-ridden contexts, then they are readily accused of double standards. On War and Democracy avoids this ethical and political dilemma by beating what could be called a double retreat.
Taking Sides in Peacekeeping: Impartiality and the Future of the United Nations by Emily Paddon Rhoads
The norm of impartiality is pivotal to the United Nations’ activities in the areas of conflict resolution, mediation, peacekeeping, humanitarian action, and adjudication. In recent years, however, the organization’s principled adherence to impartiality has come under scrutiny.
Autonomous Weapon Diplomacy: The Geneva Debates
The third and most recent informal experts’ meeting on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) took place in April 2016 at the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva. In this paper, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer addresses the procedure, negotiations, the balance of power, and diplomatic dimension of the last round of Geneva debates.
Robots as “Evil Means”? A Rejoinder to Jenkins and Purves
The notion that some means of waging war are mala in se is a confronting one. Surely, any weapon can be used for good or ill? Philosophers often try to justify the category of mala in se by suggesting that some weapons are inherently incapable of being used in accordance with the just war principles of distinction and proportionality.
Robots and Respect: A Response to Robert Sparrow
Robert Sparrow recently argued in this journal that several initially plausible arguments in favor of the deployment of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) in warfare are in fact flawed, and that the deployment of AWS faces a serious moral objection.
