Modern war is law pursued by other means. Once a bit player in military conflict, law now shapes the institutional, logistical, and physical landscape of war. At the same time, law has become a political and ethical vocabulary for marking legitimate power and justifiable death. As a result, the battlespace is as legally regulated as the rest of modern life. In Of War and Law, David Kennedy examines this important development, retelling the history of modern war and statecraft as a tale of the changing role of law and the dramatic growth of law’s power. Not only a restraint and an ethical yardstick, law can also be a weapon–a strategic partner, a force multiplier, and an excuse for terrifying violence.
Kennedy focuses on what can go wrong when humanitarian and military planners speak the same legal language–wrong for humanitarianism, and wrong for warfare. He argues that law has beaten ploughshares into swords while encouraging the bureaucratization of strategy and leadership. A culture of rules has eroded the experience of personal decision-making and responsibility among soldiers and statesmen alike. Kennedy urges those inside and outside the military who wish to reduce the ferocity of battle to understand the new roles–and the limits–of law. Only then will we be able to revitalize our responsibility for war.
A propos de l’auteur
David Kennedy is Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law and Director of the European Law Research Center at Harvard Law School. He is the author of
The Dark Sides of Virtue and coauthor of
The Canon of American Legal Thought (both Princeton).
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