Just and Unjust Military Intervention: European Thinkers from Vitoria to Mill

Cambridge University Press, 9/26/2013
EAN 9781107042025, ISBN10: 110704202X

Hardcover, 317 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2 cm
Language: English

Classical arguments about the legitimate use of force have profoundly shaped the norms and institutions of contemporary international society. But what specific lessons can we learn from the classical European philosophers and jurists when thinking about humanitarian intervention, preventive self-defense or international trusteeship today? The contributors to this volume take seriously the admonition of contextualist scholars not to uproot classical thinkers' arguments from their social, political and intellectual environment. Nevertheless, this collection demonstrates that contemporary students, scholars and policymakers can still learn a great deal from the questions raised by classical European thinkers, the problems they highlighted, and even the problematic character of some of the solutions they offered. The aim of this volume is to open up current assumptions about military intervention, and to explore the possibility of reconceptualizing and reappraising contemporary approaches.

Introduction
the enduring relevance of classical thinkers Stefano Recchia and Jennifer Welsh
1. Intervention in European history, c.1520–1850 David Trim
2. War in the face of doubt
early modern classics and the preventive use of force Ariel Colonomos
3. Vitoria
the law of war, saving the innocent, and the image of God William Bain
4. Grotius, Hobbes and Pufendorf on humanitarian intervention Richard Tuck
5. John Locke on intervention, uncertainty, and insurgency Samuel Moyn
6. Intervention and sovereign equality
legacies of Vattel Jennifer Pitts
7. David Hume and Adam Smith on international ethics and humanitarian intervention Edwin Van de Haar
8. Sovereignty, morality and history
the problematic legitimization of force in Rousseau, Kant and Hegel Pierre Hassner
9. Revisiting Kant and intervention Andrew Hurrell
10. Edmund Burke and intervention
empire and neighborhood Jennifer Welsh
11. The origins of liberal Wilsonianism
Giuseppe Mazzini on regime change and humanitarian intervention Stefano Recchia
12. J. S. Mill on non-intervention and intervention Michael Doyle.

Advance praise: 'Arguments about whether or not military intervention is justified overshadow much of today's international agenda. This authoritative collection, encompassing the reflections across four centuries of the major luminaries of European thought, will greatly enrich those debates, as well as documenting an intellectual history in its own right.' Ian Clark, Aberystwyth University