What might a human-rights-harmonious international regime on the use of force look like?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The international law on the use of force has emerged as a distinct yet central pillar of international law. Although it may be intuitively understood to be connected to the promotion of human rights, it cannot be said to have emerged exclusively or even primarily as a result of human rights concerns. The rise of international human rights law has tended, coming late to that debate as it were, to neglect questions of war, deferring to specialised regimes on a largely functionalist basis. This article asks instead how one might reimagine the international law of the use of force if one takes the axiological primacy of human rights in international law seriously. This will involve a critique of the emphasis on the mere humanitarian regulation of war and a human-rights rereading of both the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello traditions.