Abstract
This study investigates uncertainty in the jus ad bellum. It considers:- What features of the law governing resort to force, and of assessment of alternative explanations of facts and forecasts about force, enable the uncertainty and contestation which generate hard cases engaging the jus ad bellum.
- How lawyers’ beliefs about legal interpretation, strategy and ethics, shape their interpretations of law, fact and forecasting in hard cases of resort to force, and what associations are observable between lawyers’ legal and extra-legal beliefs.
- What these investigations suggest about how lawyers can manage uncertainty and extra-legal intuitions in assessing law and fact in hard cases engaging the jus ad bellum.
The study examines theories of uncertainty; legal, political and ethical theories about force; official and scholarly legal assessments of the interventions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq; and three International Court of Justice (ICJ) cases engaging the jus ad bellum. This is complemented by structured interviews and a survey with UK-based practising lawyers, legal scholars, and former Government lawyers with knowledge of the jus ad bellum. Participants were asked about contested propositions concerning the legality, ethics and politics of force, and their responses assessed for correlations between their legal and extra-legal views.
This research supports the widely held hypothesis that lawyers who see wide legal justifications for force also see wide strategic and ethical justifications for force, while those who see few legal justifications for force see few extra-legal justifications too. The study describes strategic, ethical and legal intuitions about force which the research suggests lawyers hold, and how these apparently affect legal and factual assessment. The study finally considers how insights from legal risk management, international humanitarian law, and strategic intelligence assessment might help manage legal and factual uncertainty, forecasting and extra-legal intuitions in cases engaging the jus ad bellum.
| Date of Award | 1 Mar 2020 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Guglielmo Verdirame (Supervisor) & Natasha Kuhrt (Supervisor) |