For the role of utilitarianism in the ethics of war and peace, Shaw suggests there is a Utilitarian War Principle (UWP) and argues that the principles of the just war theory should be treated as intermediate principles that are subordinated to UWP. He also argues that the state should be the primary legitimate authority to wage war and holder of the right of national defense. I argue that the utilitarian approach should be specifically linked with contingent pacifism, a new understanding (...) of pacifism from within the just war tradition, and the utilitarian contingent pacifism only endorses individual self-defense but not national defense. This finding is not only theoretically important but has practical implications for the debate on Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Utilitarian contingent pacifism supports the idealist position that Article 9 is morally significant because it makes Japan a pioneer of the new kind of pacifism. (shrink)

The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty's report, The Responsibility to Protect, argues that when a state is unable or unwilling to uphold its citizens? basic human rights, such as in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, the international community has a responsibility to protect these citizens by undertaking humanitarian intervention. An essential issue, however, remains unresolved: which particular agent in the international community has the duty to intervene? In this article, I critically examine four ways (...) of assigning this duty. Although I highlight the benefits of institutionalising the responsibility to protect, I argue that we should adopt, in the short term at least, a consequentialist solution: humanitarian intervention should be the responsibility of the intervener that will be the most effective. (shrink)

The mass killings, large-scale gang rape and large-scale expulsion of the Rohingyas from Myanmar constitute one of the most repugnant world events in recent years. This article addresses the question of whether armed humanitarian intervention would have been morally permissible to protect the Rohingyas. It approaches the question from the perspective of the jus ad bellum criteria of just war theory. This approach does not yield a definitive answer because knowing whether certain jus ad bellum conditions might have been satisfied (...) is difficult to judge without detailed knowledge of military intelligence assessments. Nevertheless, I argue that there was just cause for intervention according to both liberal and communitarian perspectives; that legitimate authority in the form of United Nations Security Council authorization would not have been morally necessary; that it is doubtful whether permissible intervention would have required humanitarian intent; that in late August 2017, intervention might well have been a last resort, but that morally relevant facts suggest intervention might have been disproportionate and lacked a reasonable chance of success, such that, all things considered, it would have perhaps been impermissible. -/- (Free access via third external link). (shrink)