“Just War” and Targeted Assassinations (Part One)

I just read a fascinating article in the New York Times:  Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.  The article recounts how U.S. President Obama has placed himself at the top of a secret process to designate terrorists for kill or capture.  The President approves of every name on the “kill list” and is said to be determined to limit the extent of the secret program, and to make sure that the fight against Al Qaeda is aligned with American values.  That such a program involves a number of difficult legal and moral issues goes without saying.  For example, the killings are often carried out by drone strikes and as a result innocent bystanders have also been killed.

The Times article refers to Obama’s reliance on “the ‘just war’ theories of Christian philosophers” and it occurred to me that perhaps not everyone is familiar with these doctrines.  I thought it might be useful to say something here about the “just war” tradition, since it remains one of the bases of international law.

With the exception of pacifist cultures that eschew violence, every culture has ways of thinking about the morality of war and observes some conception of “warrior’s honour.”  This is the idea that, even in war, some things must not be done.  The “just war” doctrine sums up the ways in which western Christian tradition has thought about the moral issues arising from war.  (Originally, these restrictions concerned only what Christians could do to other Christians.  Non-Christians were given protection a few centuries later.)  The “just war” tradition stands in contrast to the “political realist” point of view, according to which war is an instrument of foreign policy and its use is restrained only by prudence, not by morality.  The concept of “just war” is also different from what we might call the doctrine of “holy war”- the idea that attacking others is justified in the name of spreading some “faith,” whether that is a religious faith or a political ideology.

The “just war” tradition divides the moral questions about war into two groups:  Jus ad bellum, having to do with the reasons for going to war, and jus in bello, concerning conduct during war.  The targeted assassination program brings up both kinds of questions.  I’ll discuss jus ad bellum in this post and jus in bello in my next post.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) formulated three requirements for the declaration of a just war.  Each is necessary, and taken together they constitute a justification for going to war.

1. Those who command the war must have the lawful authority to do so.  (There cannot be “private” wars.)
    
2. The war must have a just cause.  The enemy must deserve to have war waged upon it because of some wrong it has inflicted.
    
3. Those waging war must intend to promote good or avoid evil.  (War must not be fought for the sake of vengeance or self-interest.)

Does the U.S. targeted assassinated program meet these requirements?  I’ll leave it to my readers to think about that.

Next time:  Moral restraints on conduct during war.

Is it ever “too late” for mediation?

I was speaking with a potential client the other day.  He assured me that, as a reasonable person, he understood the many benefits of mediation.  But the conflict had gone on for so long, he said, that he feared it was “too late” for mediation.

His remark made me pause.  As mediators, we are eternally hopeful about the possibility of resolution.  (It would be hard to do this kind of work if we were not.)  Is there any point at which it is just “too late” for a negotiated agreement?

After thinking about this for a while, I realized that “is it too late?” is the wrong question.  Indeed, mediation may fail if it is attempted too soon as too late.  If a conflict is recent the parties may not yet be motivated enough to settle it.  In a long-standing dispute, the parties usually know exactly what the conflict has cost them and they may be eager to resolve things and move on.

Rather than ask when is it “too late” for mediation then, the right question to consider is, “under what conditions is mediation unlikely to be effective?”  I can think of at least two scenarios when reaching a mediated agreement is probably going to be particularly challenging.

First, mediation will be difficult if one (or both) of the parties has a strong psychological need for vindication.  Sometimes parties in a dispute feel it is important to be “right.”  (Of course, this is often combined with a desire to have the other party judged “wrong.”)  They want an authority figure – whether that is a judge, a member of the clergy, or the head of their family – to vindicate their version of events and proclaim their position the more compelling.

Second, mediation will be difficult if either (or both) parties disavow any responsibility for the conflict.  A party may see himself as a helpless victim who has done nothing to initiate or prolong the conflict.  If this is indeed correct – if we have a case of one-sided aggression rather than mutual hostility – then mediation is likely inappropriate.  The victimized party would be better off pursuing a rights-based approach.  While such one-sided conflicts exist, it is much more common that a conflict between two or more competent adults has been fed by contributions from both sides.  This does not mean, of course, that the contributions are necessarily equal.  Avoiding a conflict can prolong it, just as surely as can angry words.

Does the presence of either of these conditions mean that a mediated agreement is impossible?  I don’t think so.  A good mediator should be able to help parties reevaluate their priorities and question long-standing assumptions.  A mediator might help a party realize that an apology might be just as valuable (and more conducive to healing) than vindication by a third party.  A mediator can help both parties understand the origins of their conflict and accept shared responsibility.  These are just some of the ways in which mediation (and even good-hearted attempts at mediation) can empower parties and achieve more than the resolution of a conflict.