INSTITUTIONALIZING
THE JUST WAR? A CRITICAL COMMENT ON BUCHANAN;
382-402
Lars Vinx
Bilkent University,
Turkey
Abstract. I will argue that Buchanan’s argument against the
principle that war is permissible only in response to an actual or imminent
attack rests on a mistaken understanding of the nature and purpose of the JWN.
Buchanan abstracts from the fact that the JWN is not just a moral principle but
also a legal rule and, as such, part of an already existing institutionalized
system for the regulation of the use of force. Due to this abstraction, he
fails to take into account the JWN’s role as a fundamental constitutional
principle in an already existing society of equal states committed to the
values of peace and equality among states. It follows that Buchanan’s own
argument is arbitrarily incomplete since it mistakenly reduces the JWN to a
mere safeguard against miscalculation and manipulation in an imaginary state of
nature.
Keywords: Allen Buchanan, aggressive war, just war, preventive
self-defence, forcible democratization, use of force, legal peace,
institutional context
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