War as the antithesis of law and the state’s vision of civil war: Notes on the Colombian Civil War of 1859-1862

Abstract

Based on Norberto Bobbio’s proposal in El problema de la guerra y las vías de la paz, this article presents an approach to the antithetical relationship between war and law—that is, one in which war is considered the antithesis of law—in the historical context of the civil war from 1859 to 1862 in the Grenadian Confederation. The proposed theoretical analysis, which refers to the state and modern vision of the civil war, is complemented with a historical component by tracing the meanings of the aforementioned antithetical relationship in the letters that President Mariano Ospina and General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera exchanged about some events of the civil war.