Is there a Future for ‘Jus ex Bello’?
| Published date | 01 November 2015 |
| Author | Ariel Colonomos |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12244 |
| Date | 01 November 2015 |
Is there a Future for ‘Jus ex Bello’?
Ariel Colonomos
CNRS-CERI, Sciences Po, Paris
Abstract
This article discusses the future potential of a norm that emerged recently from the academic literature surrounding
the ethics of war, and that echoes a number of political and moral viewpoints around the necessity of terminating
ongoing and bloody wars that otherwise are unnecessarily prolonged: the norm of ‘jus ex bello’. While it argues in
favor of a possibilistic approach to norms –in order to argue why norms should develop, it is necessary to analyze
whether they could develop –this article finds that jus ex bello might be an appropriate response to some of the argu-
ments in favor of the need for normative change in warfare. However, four major obstacles to this potential innovation
are identified, grounded in cultural history, politics, morality and cognition. Based on the further examination of these,
the article goes on to make suggestions for institutional design initiatives, in themselves dependent on possible signifi-
cant social and cultural evolution, that would favor normative change and the development of jus ex bello.
Policy Implications
•It is important to find institutional responses to the unnecessary prolongation of conflicts. Jus ex bello, a new norm
complementary to the existing set of rules on the ethics of war, could meet these expectations and provide guide-
lines to assist the decision to end a war. This vision is based on a future-oriented approach to the ethics of war
and international justice.
•States should deliberate over quantitative criteria that would provide thresholds to signal the need to put an end
to ongoing conflicts. They would notably seek to monitor proportionality as the war unfolds.
•States would develop indicators to be used as moral estimates of wars’prolongation disutility. Independent experts
would work on these and act as ‘moral rating agencies’. Tools such as predictive markets could also be used in
order to assess the future damage that would result from the prolongation of conflicts.
•Based on this future-oriented assessment, economic sanctions could be enforced, while incentives could be pro-
vided to those who would be willing to stop fighting. In some cases military intervention might be appropriate as
a means of imposing an end to fighting.
•A bottom-up approach is also needed. It is important to change the culture of warfare and the ethos of combat-
ants. This would necessitate the education of a new elite in the NGO world as well as within military and interna-
tional organizations. Patriotic sacrifice should not be a core value of the military, and the ethics of war should
reward other moral traits such as restraint.
When and how should wars come to an end? Although
this question is of great importance and resonates in the
minds of many of those who participate in conflicts, as
well as those who witness them, attempts to develop
systematic thinking in this domain have been scarce. ‘Jus
ex bello’, a terminology that has been coined recently to
capture the rules surrounding the termination of war,
has surfaced in the normative literature (Moellendorf,
2008, 2011). However, the debate is still in its early
phases. When compared with other domains of the eth-
ics of war –mainly the right to go to war (‘jus ad bel-
lum’), the rules of war (‘jus in bello’) or even the rules
that should regulate the lives of those living in societies
in the aftermath of war (‘jus post bellum’)–this initiative
is currently marginal.
1
This is unfortunate. Leaving the decision to lay down
arms to the sole discretion of those in power, without
any clarity about the rules that should guide their deci-
sion, might not necessarily be the best solution –see the
case of US disengagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, for
example. It is indeed important for a democracy to have
a public debate over what constitutes the legitimate
boundaries of the use of force, in terms of both the deci-
sion to end a war and the rules upon which this decision
is based.
Is this likely to happen? This article essentially asks
whether a move to the establishment of a set of rules
focusing on when and how to end wars is possible in
the future. Social sciences traditionally focus on explain-
ing or interpreting the development of norms from a
Research Article
©2015 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2015) 6:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12244
Global Policy Volume 6 . Issue 4 . November 2015
358
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