The Crime of Aggression, Humanity, and the Soldier

Explores the moral and legal implications of the criminality of aggressive war for the soldiers who fight, kill and are killed.

Tom Dannenbaum (Author)

9781316620397, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 May 2018

378 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.62 kg

'Readers will find themselves immersed in an immensely thoughtful and thought-provoking book, one that manages a rare feat by weaving together compassion with erudite scholarly research.' Mark Kersten, International Journal of Transitional Justice

The international criminality of waging illegal war, alongside only a few of the gravest human wrongs, is rooted not in its violation of sovereignty, but in the large-scale killing war entails. Yet when soldiers refuse to kill in illegal wars, nothing shields them from criminal sanction for that refusal. This seeming paradox in law demands explanation. Just as soldiers have no right not to kill in criminal wars, the death and suffering inflicted on them when they fight against aggression has been excluded repeatedly from the calculation of post-war reparations, whether monetary or symbolic. This, too, is jarring in an era of international law infused with human rights principles. Tom Dannenbaum explores these ambiguities and paradoxes, and argues for institutional reforms through which the law would better respect the rights and responsibilities of soldiers.

Table of cases
Table of treaties and legislation
Table of other authorities
Introduction
Part I. The Criminalization of Aggression and the Putative Dissonance of the Law's Treatment of Soldiers: 1. Soldiers and the crime of aggression: required to kill for a criminal end, forgotten in wrongful death
2. Normative reasoning and international law on aggression
3. What is criminally wrongful about aggressive war?
Part II. Can International Law's Posture towards Soldiers Be Defended?: 4. Military duress
5. Shedding certain blood for uncertain reasons
6. Legal spheres and hierarchies of obligation
7. Understanding the warrior's code
8. Global norms, domestic institutions, and the military role
Part III. Respecting Soldiers in Institutions and Doctrine: The Internal Imperative to Reform: 9. Shifting contingencies
10. Domestic implications
11. An internal normative vision for international reform
Conclusion
Index.

Subject Areas: International criminal law [LBBZ], Public international law [LBB], Law [L], International relations [JPS], Political science & theory [JPA]