Description
Book SynopsisRecent 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 theorywhich predates the international system
Trade Review
Outsourcing War's strengths lie in its reconceptualization of just war as a tradition that has the seeds within it to adapt to a nonstate-centric world.... Serves as a compelling introduction to just war theory and its relevance for the 21st century, while reviewing considerable material on how privatization of military operations changes notions of security as a public good.
* Governance: An International journal of policy, Administration and Institutions *
Table of Contents1. The Just War Tradition and the New Market for Private Force2. The State System and the Evolution of the Just War Tradition3. Jus ad Bellum Principles and Privatized War4. Privatization and the Normative Challenge to Jus in Bello Rules5. The Ethics of War, the Market for Private Force, and the Public/Private DivideReferences
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