Jus ad bellum and jus in bello in New Wars

Abstract

ABSTRACT Gökçer, Onur, Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello in New Wars, Master’s Thesis, Ankara, 2018. The concept of warfare has been transforming since the end of the Cold War, and more recently following with the war on terror policy of the United States. This changing concept of warfare created contestations to norms as jus ad bellum and jus in bello. New wars did not totally transform the traditional wars, but it added new concepts and level of analysis to it. These new concepts and levels of analysis have created contestation areas in which meanings-in-use of jus ad bellum and jus in bello have been debated. As a result, the war on terror and cyber wars have appeared as a new domain for international law. The regulation of new wars with existing norms/laws have been quite challenging because of the different characteristics and tools of new wars. Not only, universal meanings of these norms have been challenged in this domain, but also existing conventions such as the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocol and the Charter of the United Nations have been able to contain new wars. Consequently, contestations and deliberations over jus ad bellum and jus in bello norms have appeared, creating an opportunity for reconstructing a universal meaning for these norms. In this vein, by examining different processes of policy-making of different actors in specific cases and revealing their differences in their claims of legitimacy for these conflicting ideas, this thesis examines the implications of the norms of the jus ad bellum and jus in bello in new wars. Key Words Jus ad bellum, jus in bello, international humanitarian law, new wars, war on terror, cyber war.