International Ethics and War: a History (110474)

This course will focus on two main themes of the history of international ethics and war: just war and in particular humanitarian intervention. The course is presented as a set of eight lectures as follows:

Lecture 1: Introduction to international ethics (the views against ethics and norms in international politics and the views in support of ethics and norms in international politics).

Lecture 2: The just war doctrine from antiquity until today, with emphasis on Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Vitoria, Gentili, Suarez and Grotius, and concluding with Walzer.

Lecture 3: The roots of humanitarian intervention: just war against tyranny, with emphasis on Vitoria, Gentili, Suarez, Grotius, the monarchomachs and Bodin, and Vattel.

Lecture 4: International law: the humanitarian intervention juridical debate from the 1830 until the 1930s.

Lecture 5: Intervention and non-intervention in political theory during the long nineteenth century: the views of Kant, Hegel, Cobden, Mazzini and J.S. Mill.

Lecture 6: Case studies of humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century: the Greeks (1821-1831), Lebanon and Syria (1860-1861) and the Bulgarians (1876-1878).

Lecture 7: Humanitarian intervention today: (a) humanitarian intervention cases during the Cold War, (b) humanitarian interventions cases from 1990 until today.

Lecture 8: the humanitarian intervention debate: in search of the appropriate international reaction in humanitarian plights and the key issues in the recent debate on humanitarian intervention.

Suggested reading:

Main book:  Alexis Heraclides, Just War and Humanitarian Intervention: A History in the International Ethics of War (Athens: I. Sideris, 2020), which can be bought at a low price at the Sideris bookshop, Solonos 116, Athens (when the bookshops open again).

Bass, Garry. J., Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (2009).

Chesterman, Simon, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (2001).

Christopher, Paul, The Ethics of War and Peace (2004).

Fixdal, Mona and Dan Smith, ‘Humanitarian Intervention and Just War’, Mershon International Studies Review, 42:2 (1998).

Heraclides, Alexis and Ada Dialla, Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century: Setting the Precedent (2015).

Hoffmann, Stanley, ‘The Politics and Ethics of Military Intervention’, Survival, 37:4 (1995-1996).

Rodogno, Davide, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Intervention in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914. The Emergence of a European Concept and International Practice (2012).

Tuck, Richard, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (1999).

Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars (1977).

Wheeler, Nicholas J., Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (2000).