Legitimate Targets?
Social Construction, International Law and US Bombing

Can international law regulate warfare? Experiences of US bombing suggests it does not solve the twenty-first-century belligerent's legitimacy dilemma.

Janina Dill (Author)

9781107056756, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 November 2014

386 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.68 kg

''Can war be effectively regulated by international law?' In answering this vital question, Janina Dill offers a new and sophisticated understanding of the very nature of law and the way it creates effects in the world. Law is a compromise between utility and morality, between military pragmatism and humanitarianism, but it is also dynamic. It evolves through use and application to new challenges of war-fighting. Dill's excellent book will challenge long-held views about both law and how wars are fought.' Martha Finnemore, George Washington University

Based on an innovative theory of international law, Janina Dill's book investigates the effectiveness of international humanitarian law (IHL) in regulating the conduct of warfare. Through a comprehensive examination of the IHL defining a legitimate target of attack, Dill reveals a controversy among legal and military professionals about the 'logic' according to which belligerents ought to balance humanitarian and military imperatives: the logics of sufficiency or efficiency. Law prescribes the former, but increased recourse to international law in US air warfare has led to targeting in accordance with the logic of efficiency. The logic of sufficiency is morally less problematic, yet neither logic satisfies contemporary expectations of effective IHL or legitimate warfare. Those expectations demand that hostilities follow a logic of liability, which proves impracticable. This book proposes changes to international law, but concludes that according to widely shared normative beliefs, on the twenty-first-century battlefield there are no truly legitimate targets.

Introduction
Part I. A Constructivist Theory of International Law: 1. The challenge
2. The theory
Part II. The Definition of a Legitimate Target of Attack in International Law: 3. Positive law
4. Customary law
Part III. An Empirical Study of International Law in War: 5. The rise of international law in US air warfare
6. The changing logic of US air warfare
7. The behavioural relevance of international law in US air warfare
Part IV. An Evaluation of International Law in War: 8. The lack of normative success of international law in US air warfare
9. The impossibility of normative success for international law in war
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]