A Contractarian Account of the Crime of Aggression

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the moral standing of jus ad bellum as it is formulated in the UN Charter. According to the contract that the Charter embeds, any armed violation of a state’s territorial integrity by another state is an instance of prohibited aggression. As we read it, the Charter confers a moral right against aggression even on states whose borders are unjustly drawn, and even on dangerous states whose political society is irrecoverably divided. In return, states gain a right to go to wars whose aim is to defend their territorial integrity even when such wars are pre-contractually unjust.