Can war ever be just? By what right do we charge people with war crimes? Can war itself be a crime? What is a good peace treaty?
Since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, many wars have erupted, inflaming such areas as the Persian Gulf, Central Africa and Central Europe. Brutalities committed during these conflicts have sparked new interest in the ethics of war and peace.
Brian Orend explores the ethics of war and peace from a Kantian perspective, emphasizing human rights protection, the rule of international law and a fully global concept of justice. Contending that Kant’s just war doctrine has not been given its due, Orend displays Kant’s theory to its fullest, impressive effect. He then completely and clearly updates Kant’s perspective for application to our time.
Along the way, he criticizes pacifism and realism, explores the nature of human rights protection during wartime, and defends a theory of just war. He also looks ahead to future developments in global institutional reform using cases from the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda to illustrate his argument.
Controversial and timely, perhaps the most important contribution War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective makes is with regard to the question of justice after war. Orend offers a principled theory of war termination, making an urgent plea to reform current international law.

Brian Orend is a professor of philosophy at the University of Waterloo in Canada. He is the author of six books, including the bestselling The Morality of War, one of the most widely-used books on the ethics of war and peace. He is best-known for his work on Human Rights and post-war justice. He has a Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York City, has been Distinguished Visiting Professor of Human Rights at Lund University in Sweden, and has lectured around the world and around the web. Brian has epilepsy owing to a brain tumour, which has motivated his research into happiness in spite of illness.

Brian Orend's profile page

For many reasons this book...is a valuable contribution to the just war tradition

Choice

Opening a new topic in Kant scholarship as well as a new perspective on international relations, Brian Orend has delivered an impressive first book that is likely to refresh and stimulate debate.

Thomas W. Pogge

With a nice combination of insight and ingenuity, Orend discovers and constructs a Kantian account of just war -- which is marked by a unique emphasis on jus post bellum, the justice of post-war settlements. He then develops this account precisely and elegantly....The result is an important contribution to the philosophical analysis of morality and war.

Michael Walzer