9 - The impossibility of normative success for international law in war

Summary

The previous chapter arrived at the conclusion that the touchstone of normatively successful IL in war is the protection of individual rights and hence the imposition of what I refer to as the logic of liability. What would it look like if belligerents in combat operations acted accordingly by only attacking individuals liable to lethal attack?

The impracticability of warfare according to the logic of liability

Combatants who fight without a just cause or who resist a just attack contribute to an unjustified threat to the combatants on the other side and are hence liable to defensive harm (including deliberate attack). By implication, if combatants use force in defence of a just cause, they do not forfeit their right to life and should remain immune. The fact that the logic of liability abandons the independence of legitimate conduct in war from questions of resort creates numerous practical problems that have been widely discussed among just-war theorists. What would the implications be for IL if a connection between legality of resort to force and conduct in war was officially acknowledged?