Compensating Collateral Damage in Elective International Conflict

Abstract

Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter famously prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of states. Yet armed conflict, whether international or non-international, continues, with a depressing regularity, to be a feature of world politics. Even more depressing is the fact that much of the misery that armed conflict entails is visited upon persons who are not combatants. I propose to address the death and injury which these innocent victims of war suffer - especially in elective international conflicts - and the remedies to which they should be entitled. I cannot promise you a simple solution, even though this is a problem for which legal-and moral-principles seem to me to be clear, but I believe that I can clarify the application of those principles and show that the United States and the world community can do better and that their own policies and interests compel it.