Perverted Peace
| Author | Mia Tamarin |
Perverted Peace
Mia Tamarin*
I. INTRODUCTION
The entire system of international law exists primarily for the aims of world
peace and security.1 But what do we mean by peace; what international society
do we aim to sustain? Peace scholars theorise peace in regards to harmony and
successful approaches to peace-building. Within the legal framework, laws
have developed to regulate the legality of wars as well as their conduct;
scholars have written extensively on Jus ad bellum, Jus in bello, the Use of Force,
intervention, Responsibility to Protect, etc. However, the United Nations (UN)
has never defined peace; in its most common sense peace is understood to be
the absence of war. Indeed ‘law is about distinguishing war from peace’.2 Thus
under international law, war and the Use of Force are not merely legalised
under certain conditions, but reg ulated through laws.3 Their distinction varies
and changes in kind and degree of what is legal and illegal4 or ‘who could do
what, when, to whom?’5 Notwithstanding, some forms of force (or violence) are
* Mia Tamarin is a candidate for an MA of International Law at SOAS, University of London
and is a graduate of BA Peace Studies and International Relations. She recently published a
paper on the Israeli female soldier as part of the Women in War Conference (Sarajevo 2014) and
will be presenting this paper at the Critical Legal Conference September 2014.
1 The purpose of the UN is to maintain international peace and security; remove and suppress
threa ts to the p eace a nd breac hes of t he peac e; and b ring about, by p eacefu l means and in
conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment of international
disputes that might lead to a breach of the peace. United Nations, ’Charter of the United
Nations’ (1 UNTS XVI, A.1, 24 October 1945)
2 David Kennedy, ‘Lawfare and Warfare’ in James Crawford and Martti Koskenniemi (eds), The
Cambridge Companion to International Law (CUP 2012) 158.
3 Wars in themselves can be ‘justifiable’ and their conduct can be legal; thus it is regulated. So ‘if
you kill this way and not th at, here and not there, these people and not those – what you do is
privilege. If not, it is criminal’. ibid 162 (emphasis in original); see also Simon Chesterman, Just
War Or Just Peace?: Humanitarian Interventi on and International Law (OUP 2001); David Kennedy,
The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (Pr inceto n Univers ity Pres s
2004) ch 8; David Kennedy, Of War and Law (Princeton University Press 2006).
4 ibid.
5 ibid 164.
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