AMERICAN HEGEMONY AND ETHICS OF WAR AFTER 9/11
A Critical Approach to Revisionist Views
Keywords:
9/11, Revisionist View, Global Ethics of War, Just War doctrine; War on Terror; Anticipatory Self-defense; Humanitarian Intervention; Counterterrorism, 9/11, Revisionist View, Global Ethics of War, Just War, War on Terror, Anticipatory Self-defence, Humanitarian Intervention, CounterterrorismAbstract
The “just war” doctrine posits that wars must be morally justified. It provides conditions that must be satisfied for a war to be justly waged and justly conducted. The doctrine’s core principles are embodied in modern international law, which has imposed a legal restraint on the use of force by even the most powerful. However, since the September 11th attacks, there has been a concerted effort among some American policymakers to reinterpret the doctrine to justify the War on Terror. Their revisions to the classic doctrine alters the nature and the scope of rules on self-defence, humanitarian interventions as well as war crimes. The paper exposes and critically analyzes the revisionist arguments to show the underlying US-centred unilateralism and exceptionalism. The success of such arguments reveals how the US hegemony has extended to the global ethics on war and how it may effectively obliterate the rights-based moral constraint that the just war theory intended to provide.
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