(Legal?) Reasons for War-Making in Classical Greece: Nature and Scope of Pólemos Díkaios

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Frankfurt am Main

Encuentro; Jour Fixe de Investigadores del Max-Planck Institut für europäische Rechtgeschichte (Instituto Max-Planck para la Historia del Derecho Europeo); 2011

Max-Planck Institut für europäische Rechtgeschichte (Instituto Max-Planck para la Historia del Derecho Europeo)

The purpose of this paper is to trace the background and nature of the concept of dikaios polemos in Greek antiquity. The more general aim, in broad terms, would be to compare, in a diachronical perspective, if the content of "just war" has basically changed or if, on the contrary, despite the current prohibition on the use of force, consacrated in the UN Charter, justifications to initiate an armed conflict did not change (in global terms) throughout history and can be already perceived (with obvious differences) in ancient times. This initial research will basically draw conclusions on the characteristics and scope of ?just war? from selected passages of Homer and Hesiod (for the archaic period) and from Thucydides, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle and Athenian dramatists (for classical times).