A Situated Just War Theory: Time, People and Space

Abstract

Just War Theory remains a central framework for assessing and guiding the morality of war. Its language and principles have become widely used, extending beyond academic circles to politicians, international law and ordinary citizens. However, its application to contemporary conflicts reveals several types of shortcomings that undermine its normative force: in some areas, JWT is over‑reliant on unexamined assumptions, while in others it under‑specifies significant concepts and fails to provide adequate normative justification, and in certain areas it exhibits both these tendencies simultaneously. This thesis identifies these three central shortcomings as: 1) a temporal deficit, concerning when wars begin and end; 2) the demoi problem, involving who constitutes ‘the people’ on whose behalf war is waged and how this shapes claims to just cause and legitimate authority; and 3) the under-conceptualisation of territory, which neglects how territorial attachments come about and are invoked in justifications for waging war.

Rather than abandoning JWT, the thesis supplements contemporary JWT by moving it away from a restricted ethics of war and towards insights from political theory and international relations that can better address the realities of contemporary war. This move reconnects JWT with wider literature by engaging with rival conceptions of peace and violence, communitarian thought and the political theory of territory. Many of these accounts are reviewed and found wanting in important respects, particularly in their treatment of the normative and practical dimensions of war. By supplementing JWT in this way, the thesis works to correct limitations within JWT as well as within political theory itself, insofar as both have marginalised or neglected key aspects of war and political violence. Ultimately, I revise and integrate Danielle Lupton and Valerie Morkevičius’s peace–vim–war continuum, communitarian theories of collectives and their value and Margaret Moore’s theory of territorial rights. This supplementation allows for an informed ethical engagement with the wars in Yemen and Ukraine, showing how a situated just war theory can retain its moral clarity, thus reinforcing its use. The thesis argues that the continued relevance of JWT depends on its capacity to address the inherent complexity and political entanglements that constitute the experience of war. Moral reflection on conflict must resist the temptation of neat binaries and universal certainties, instead cultivating a mode of judgement that is attuned to the realities of war.