EJIL: Talk!

David Kretzmer is Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor of Law, Sapir Academic College.

Many thanks to the editors of the EJIL for selecting my article for discussion on the blog and to Noam, Gina, Thomas and Mary Ellen for their thoughtful and perceptive comments.  These comments provide me with the opportunity of clarifying some of the points I raised in the article and expressing my view about issues that I failed to consider.

The discussion in my article was confined to use of force in exercise of a state’s inherent right to self-defence, recognized in article 51 of the UN Charter.  I did not consider humanitarian intervention, nor use of force authorized by the Security Council under article 42 of the Charter.  However, Gina is quite right in concluding that my analysis of unilateral use of force by states implicitly rules out unilateral humanitarian intervention.  Any decision on such intervention must be a collective one taken by the SC under Chapter VII. ( I shall not discuss the controversial view of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo that there may an intervention which while unlawful is nevertheless legitimate.)  While article 42 speaks of forcible action “as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security” I fully accept Mary Ellen’s view that such action must also meet the demands of proportionality.

What is the place of the “narrow proportionality” test in jus ad bellum?  Thomas points out that while intimating that this test does indeed have such a place I neglected to develop the issue.  Following the line of just war theory, Mary Ellen argues that the very essence of proportionality in jus ad bellum involves “weighing the cost of resort to military force in terms of lives lost and property destroyed relative to the value of the legitimate military end.”  While Thomas mentions that there is little, if any, authority on which one can “conclude that the law on the use of force already includes a ‘narrow proportionality’ criterion” it seems to me that such a criterion is inherent in the very notion of proportionality.  Hence, as in other contexts in which the means-end proportionality test is employed, some “cost-benefit” analysis must indeed be part of the jus ad bellum test too.

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Mary Ellen O’Connell, Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution–Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame

One of the most important points that David Kretzmer makes in his detailed analysis of the principle of proportionality in the jus ad bellum is the following: The question of “[p]roportionality arises … only when the aim or ends pursued [through resort to military force] are legitimate.  When it comes to state liability, if those ends are illegitimate all forcible measures used will ipse facto  be illegitimate, whether they are proportionate or not.” The ends of military force are legitimate only if they conform to an exception to the United Nations Charter Article 2(4) prohibition on the use of force, meet the requirements of the law of state responsibility, and comply with the general principle of necessity.  Proportionality involves weighing the cost of resort to military force in terms of lives lost and property destroyed relative to the value of the legitimate military end.  Assessing proportionality as a distinctive requirement of lawful resort to force only makes sense when the other conditions on lawful resort to force are also met. Read the rest of this entry…

Thomas Liefländer is a doctoral candidate at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford

Any attempt to come to terms with the notion of proportionality, be it in the context of the use of force in self-defence or anywhere else, has to grapple with a number of questions. First, what is the nature of the applicable proportionality test? Possible answers include ‘tit-for-tat’, ‘not-more-than-necessary’ or the ‘narrow proportionality test’ which assesses whether the ‘good’ effects of a measure outweigh its ‘bad’ effects. Secondly, once this question is settled, a more precise definition of the various factors going into the proportionality equation and how they interrelate is needed. Finally, how is each factor to be assessed under the conditions of epistemic and normative uncertainty that exist in the real world? Depending on the context, the answer to any one of these questions can be straightforward or very difficult. In self-defence, it seems, they are mostly difficult.

Professor Kretzmer’s recent EJIL article tackles some of these questions. He focuses, in particular, on the definition of the legitimate ends of self-defence and how they impact on the proportionality test. In summary, he first suggests that the definition of legitimate goals can determine whether a ‘tit-for-tat’ or ‘not-more-than-necessary’ test is applicable. Secondly, identifying the legitimate aims is crucial for being able to apply both the ‘not-more-than-necessary’ and the ‘narrow proportionality’ test, as both relate action taken in self-defence to the good (ie the legitimate ends) it intends to achieve. In these two respects, Professor Kretzmer’s contribution is outstanding. His work will certainly focus the discussion on the centrality that the definition of legitimate ends has both for self-defence in general and the issue of proportionality in particular. However, in stressing this particular aspect Professor Kretzmer may have downplayed the role of the remaining questions to some degree. I shall outline the important questions that Professor Kretzmer’s article essentially leaves open. In doing so, I will briefly touch on (1) the status of the ‘narrow proportionality’ test, (2) the ‘means’ side of the ‘means-end/not-more-than-necessary’ test, and finally (3) on the more general issue of proportionality-assessments under epistemic and normative uncertainty. My intention is not so much to challenge Professor Kretzmer’s arguments, but rather to extend – but not complete – the picture of what it is that we argue about when proportionality is in issue.

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 Dr Gina Heathcote is a lecturer at SOAS, University of London

I shall begin by answering the question posed in my title in the negative.  The very technical and detailed discussion of the scope of jus ad bellum self-defence, as is found in David Kretzmer’s article, plays down the contemporary spaces where the Charter is being re-imagined by States. The post-millennium era has been characterised by state practice that seems to conveniently forget the constraints of the Charter structure, in particular the importance of Articles 2(3) and 2(4) of the Charter, in favour of unilateral force. In returning to the scope and permission embedded in the principle of proportionality, Kretzmer acknowledges but neatly avoids contemporary debates on the use of force in humanitarian crisis and the use of targeted strikes through identification but little analysis of the rhetoric, practice and confusion of the vast literature that has characterised post-millennium debates on jus ad bellum. This is an unfortunate consequence of Kretzmer narrowing in on, first, a component of the use of force (self-defence) and, second, to a specific aspect of that component (proportionality). This avoids looking, seeing or acknowledging the harm – the deaths – caused by targeted strikes and the consequences of both collective and unilateral interventions justified on humanitarian grounds, allowing international lawyers to retell stories of technical legal knowledge that are far removed from ‘what we talk about when we talk about war’ (see B.Stark ‘What We Talk about When we Talk about War’, 32 Stanford Journal of International Law (1996) 91). Read the rest of this entry…

Dr Noam Lubell, Reader, School of Law, University of Essex

I’ve been asked to begin the discussion of Professor David Kretzmer’s new article on proportionality. Having benefitted from David’s wisdom in the past 20 years both academically and in my previous NGO life, I am not surprised to once again have thoroughly enjoyed reading his work. In particular I’m thankful to have been asked to take part in this discussion, as his latest article contains many thought-provoking points, of which we will probably only begin to scratch the surface (I urge you to read the article itself!). Considering the limited space in a discussion of this kind, I’m going to focus on just a few points related to two issues that arise a number of times in the article. Read the rest of this entry…