¹ For historical background see Best, G., Humanity in Warfare (London, 1983)Google Scholar and Holsti, K. J., Peace and War (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² The Prince, tr. by Bull, G. (Harmondsworth, 1961)Google Scholar.

³ Collingwood, R. G., The New Leviathan (New York, 1971), ch. XXXVGoogle Scholar.

⁴ See ‘Synopsis of Categories’, Roget’s International Thesaurus (3rd edn. New York, 1962), pp. xvii–xxGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Wight, Martin, International Theory; The Three Traditions (Leicester and London, 1991), p. 106Google Scholar

⁶ Rawls, John, ‘Justice as Fairness’, in Laslett, P. and Runciman, W. G. (eds.) Philosophy, Politics and Society (Second Series) (Oxford, 1972), pp. 132–57Google Scholar. Also see A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), esp. ch. 2.Google Scholar

⁷ Rawls, A Theory of Justice pp. 378–9.

⁸ Lucas, J. R., On Justice (Oxford, 1980), ch. 1.Google Scholar

⁹ J. S. Mill’s fundamental distinction between ‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’ actions is perhaps the classical statement of this liberal principle. For its application to international relations, see his ‘A Few Words on Non-intervention’, in Himmelfarb, G. (ed.), Essays on Politics and Culture by John Stuart Mill (New York, 1963), pp. 368–84Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Commutative justice is the prevalent form of international justice historically, but it is by no means the only form. Nowadays one cannot overlook the possibility and sometimes the reality of corrective justice, humanitarian justice, distributive justice, and global justice in international relations. See, among others, Brilmayer, L., Justifying International Acts (Ithaca, 1989)Google Scholar and Bull, H., Justice in International Relations (Waterloo, Ontario, 1984)Google Scholar.

¹¹ Irwin, T. (tr.), Nicomachean Ethics (Indianapolis, 1985), Book 5, Section 2, pp. 117–19Google Scholar.

¹² Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 3.

¹³ Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. Oakeshott, M. (Oxford, 1946), ch. 15, p. 94Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Cornford, F. M., The Republic of Plato (London, 1980), Book I, ch. IV, p. 35Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Irwin, Nichomachean Ethics, Book 5, Sections 8, pp. 134–5.

¹⁶ Lucas, On Justice, p. 16.

¹⁷ See Draper, G., ‘Grotius’ Place in the Development of Legal Ideas about War’, in Bull, H., Kingsbury, B., Roberts, A. (eds.), Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford, 1990), p. 195Google Scholar.

¹⁸ See the discussion in Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law (Oxford, 1961), pp. 187–90.Google Scholar

¹⁹ One can also conceive of a dialectical relationship between different standards of justice, such as that between procedural and distributive or between intentionalist and consequentialist standards.

²⁰ Claims for corrective justice were connected with reparations to Kuwait for injuries and damages caused by Iraq and with compensation to third-party countries (mainly Egypt, Turkey and Jordan) and to third-party nationals (mainly foreign workers in Kuwait from Third World Moslem countries) for injuries and damages caused by the trade embargo against Iraq. Claims for distributive justice involved the issue of equitable contributions to the Coalition enterprise by some members, particularly Germany and Japan, and the adverse affect of the embargo on the poorest Third World countries. Finally, claims for global justice concerned deliberate damage to the environment caused by Iraq. For elaboration on these points see Robert H. Jackson, ‘Interactive Justice: International Ethics and the Gulf Crisis’, Unpublished paper delivered at the Annual Conference of the British International Studies Association, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 17–19 December 1990.

²¹ Excerpts from a statement by the Iraq Revolutionary Command Council reprinted in The New York Times, 9 August 1990.

²² Quoted by The New York Times, 12 August 1990.

²³ Bull, The Prince, ch. XVIII.

²⁴ Wight, International Theory, p. 220.

²⁵ Wight, International Theory, pp. 33–34.

²⁶ See P. Taylor and A.J.R. Groom, ‘The United Nations and the Gulf War 1990–91: Back to the Future?’ Work in preparation for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, December, 1991, p. 40.

²⁷ For a careful legal analysis of the relationship of Resolution 678 to the UN Charter, see Scheffer, D. J., ‘Commentary on Collective Security’, in Damrosch, L. F. and Scheffer, D. J. (eds.), Law and Force in the New International Order (Boulder, Col., 1991), pp. 101–10Google Scholar.

²⁸ Therefore, it is a not only a considerable overstatement but also a misreading of the Charter to claim the Council in this episode was ‘manipulated’ and the authority of the UN was ‘usurped’ by the United States. These claims are made by Falk, Richard, ‘How the West Mobilised for War’, in Gittings, John (ed.), Beyond the Gulf War (London, 1991), pp. 13–15Google Scholar.

²⁹ See Meron, T. (ed.), Human Rights in International Law: Legal and Policy Issues (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 9.

³⁰ The Economist, 22–28 June 1991.

³¹ See Clark, Ian, Waging War: A Philosophical Introduction (Oxford, 1990), ch. 2Google Scholar and Johnson, James Turner, Can Modern War be Just?. (New Haven and London, 1984), ch. 1Google Scholar.

³² For example, see Brittain, Victoria (ed.), The Gulf Between Us (London, 1991)Google Scholar and Gittings, Beyond the Gulf War.

³³ One cannot evaluate war strictly in terms of either intentionalist or consequentialist ethics. Jus ad bellum involves both types of ethics: we obviously need to calculate the (imagined) consequences of any decision to go to war. Such a decision could be considered immoral in consequentialist terms if it is reasonably clear in advance that one is sending lambs to the slaughter. Perhaps Saddam Hussein can be condemned on these grounds. Jus in bello may also involve some forms of consequentialism: a commander might be condemned for launching or continuing combat when it is clear that his troops will be sacrificed with no military gain. Military commanders in the First World War were frequently blamed for doing this. Furthermore, nuclear war ethics are also consequentialist rather than intentionalist. The only morally tolerably (transparent) intention would be never to use them, but this contradicts their deterrent effect.

³⁴ By requiring concealment and surprise-instrumental considerations-warfare makes transparency of intentions difficult to achieve.

³⁵ Wight, International Theory, p. 162.

³⁶ One must always keep in mind the perspective of the pilot who may not be able to discriminate between civilians and military personnel on a target or only has a few seconds-if that-to make such a judgement. If we deem a technology legitimate and lawful in waging war, then we must apply standards of conduct appropriate to it.

³⁷ This or similar expressions, such as ‘bombed back into the Stone Age’, are prominent in the rhetoric of those who oppose air bombardment.

³⁸ It has been suggested that ‘one of the goals of Allied bombing’ was the ‘goal of rendering Iraq a political and economic nullity’ which ‘goes far beyond any UN resolution’. I believe this is a gross exaggeration but if it is correct it seriously undermines the legitimacy of the Coalition bombing campaign. See Carroll, E. J. and LaRocque, G. R., ‘Victory in the Desert: Superior Technology or Brute Force?’ in , Brittain (ed.), The Gulf Between Us, p. 51Google Scholar.

³⁹ I am indebted to Terry Kersch for clarifying some of the moral issues involved in military tactics.

⁴⁰ See various contributions to Brittain (ed.), The Gulf Between Us and Gittings, Beyond the Gulf War.

⁴¹ Draper, ‘Grotius’ Place in the Development of Legal Ideas about War’, p. 195.

⁴² The Senate granted President Bush the authority to launch war by a narrow vote of 52 to 47.

⁴³ The Gulf conflict did not come to an end with the eviction of Iraq from Kuwait. The UN Security Council afterwards enforced (not without difficulty) various sanctions against Iraq which inflicted hardships on its people. This action will have to be taken into account in any final overall assessment of the justification of the war.

⁴⁴ Bull, Hedley, ‘Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory’, World Politics, 31 (1979), p. 595CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ An excellent example is James, Alan, Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ For an incisive review, see Best, Geoffrey, ‘The Restraint of War in Historical Perspective’, in Delissen, A. J. M. and Tanja, G. J. (eds.), Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict (Leiden, 1991), pp. 3–26Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Can Modern War be Just, p. 17.

⁴⁸ Wight, International Theory, p. 220.