Recent decades have seen an increasing reliance on private military contractors (PMCs) to provide logistical services, training, maintenance, and combat troops. In Outsourcing War, Amy E. Eckert examines the ethical implications involved in the widespread use of PMCs, and in particular questions whether they can fit within customary ways of understanding the ethical prosecution of warfare. Her concern is with the ius in bello (right conduct in war) strand of just war theory.
Just war theorizing is generally built on the assumption that states, and states alone, wield a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Who holds responsibility for the actions of PMCs? What ethical standards might they be required to observe? How might deviations from such standards be punished? The privatization of warfare poses significant challenges because of its reliance on a statist view of the world. Eckert argues that the tradition of just war theory-which predates the international system of states-can evolve to apply to this changing world order. With an eye toward the practical problems of military command, Eckert delves into particular cases where PMCs have played an active role in armed conflict and derives from those cases the modifications necessary to apply just principles to new agents in the landscape of war.
By:
Amy E. Eckert
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780801454202
ISBN 10: 0801454204
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 19 February 2016
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
1. The Just War Tradition and the New Market for Private Force 2. The State System and the Evolution of the Just War Tradition 3. Jus ad Bellum Principles and Privatized War 4. Privatization and the Normative Challenge to Jus in Bello Rules 5. The Ethics of War, the Market for Private Force, and the Public/Private Divide References Index
"Amy E. Eckert is Associate Professor of Political Science at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is coeditor of The Future of Just War and Rethinking the 21st Century: ""New"" Problems, ""Old"" Solutions."
Reviews for Outsourcing War: The Just War Tradition in the Age of Military Privatization
"""Outsourcing War advances theoretical discussion about the normative assessment and restraint of modern warfare, and about how normative theory must change in order to accommodate the phenomenon of private military contractors; there are some policy implications as well.""-Ward Thomas, College of the Holy Cross, author of The Ethics of Destruction: Norms and Force in International Relations ""The rise of private military contractors (PMCs) challenges the use of military force and our ability as scholars to both explain and evaluate it. Amy E. Eckert has provided an important new assessment of this challenge, bringing to bear careful empirical information on PMCs and demonstrating the continuing relevance of the just war tradition. Eckert explains how a tradition of thought that many believe is relevant only for 'justifying' a state's use of force can actually be used to critically evaluate new forms of authority in the global political system.""-Anthony F. Lang Jr., University of St Andrews, author of International Political Theory: An Introduction"
