Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why - Hardcover

Fletcher, George P.; Ohlin, Jens David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195183088 ISBN 13: 9780195183085

Publisher: OUP USA, 2008

Synopsis

In Defending Humanity, internationally acclaimed legal scholars George P. Fletcher and Jens David Ohlin tackle one of the most important and controversial questions of our time: When is war justified? When a nation is attacked, few would deny that it has the right to respond with force. But what about preemptive and preventive wars, or crossing another state's border to stop genocide? Was Israel justified in initiating the Six Day War, and was NATO's intervention in Kosovo legal? What about the U.S. invasion of Iraq?
In their provocative new book, Fletcher and Ohlin offer a groundbreaking theory on the legality of war with clear guidelines for evaluating these interventions. The authors argue that much of the confusion on the subject stems from a persistent misunderstanding of the United Nations Charter. The Charter appears to be very clear on the use of military force: it is only allowed when authorized by the Security Council or in self-defense. Unfortunately, this has led to the problem of justifying force when the Security Council refuses to act or when self-defense is thought not to apply--and to the difficult dilemma of declaring such interventions illegal or ignoring the U.N. Charter altogether.
Fletcher and Ohlin suggest that the answer lies in going back to the domestic criminal law concepts upon which the U.N. Charter was originally based, in particular, the concept of "legitimate defense," which encompasses not only self-defense but defense of others. Lost in the English-language version of the Charter but a vital part of the French and other non-English versions, the concept of legitimate defense will enable political leaders, courts, and scholars to see the solid basis under international law for states to intervene with force--not just to protect themselves against an imminent attack but also to defend other national groups.

About this title

About the Author

George P. Fletcher, the Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia University, is one of the preeminent scholars of criminal law in the English language. His Rethinking Criminal Law (2000 OUP) and The Grammar of Criminal Law: American, Comparative, and International (2007 OUP) are regarded as the leading works in the theory of criminal law and comparative criminal law.
Jens David Ohlin is an expert in international criminal law and has published articles on subjects ranging from genocide, war crimes, conspiracy, international law and human rights. He holds both a law degree and a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University, where he currently teaches.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195183088
• ISBN 13: 9780195183085
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288