Jus ad Bellum & the obstacles to lasting peace

Abstract

The history of the jus ad bellum post-UN can be summed up as a great internal struggle inherent in chapter 7 of the UN Charter, amplified by the overriding political interests of the world's major military powers, in which the general prohibition of the use of force in A. 2(4) has consistently found itself on the losing side for more than half a century. The law of war is easily the most politically loaded field of the international law, and no other branch of the law of war has fallen subject to as much political abuse as the jus ad bellum. At the root of these shortcomings lies an outdated procedural framework designed to protect the political interests of the victors of WWII. As such, legal development has striven to keep up with the changing face of war and the legal institutions of the jus ad bellum themselves have been trampled over in the process. Through the ample conflicts scattered across the Cold War timeline, mankind bore witness to the consequences, and the more recent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated that the problems have subsisted through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of a more hegemonic state of international affairs dominated by the military presence of the USA. The primary goal of this research will be to assess the effectiveness of international law in the prevention of recourse to the use of military force. The analysis shall proceed by establishing the original scope of international law of war and the principal underlying philosophies behind the formation of the UN, segueing into some of the more central legal institutions of the jus ad bellum; including self-defence, collective security and the doctrine of R2P in intervention. Our main thrust shall be the interplay between the legal regime under the UNCh an The manner in which the UN framework has facilitated responses to these modern developments in warfare is to be considered in light of the political dominance of the P-5 members of the UN Security Council.