Walzer and rawls on just wars and humanitarian interventions

Abstract

The continuing reflection on and incremental growth of the theory of just war has been an important feature of the post-World War II international order. In this chapter I want to compare two important contributions to this developing theory; my focus will be on John Rawls's theory of just war in his book Law of Peoples and on the theory of Michael Walzer.1 Their theories are enough alike to warrant being treated together, as constituting something like a unified view of the subject. What makes them especially interesting is that each theory has made the notion of human rights central as the ground of justification (or justifiability) in just war theory (JWT). But the theories are sufficiently divergent to make fruitful an examination of their differences. © 2007 Springer.