How much harm is "proportionate" in a war? On the search for a moral criterion

EDUARDO RIVERA LÓPEZ

Simposio; LOS CONFLICTOS ARMADOS EN EL SIGLO XXI: PROBLEMAS JURÍDICOS Y FILOSÓFICOS; 2016

Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Escuela de Derecho

My main claim in this paper is that just war is, in some specific ways, much more complex than individual self-defense, and this implies that a theory of proportionality in war should make some distinctions that are unnecessary in the case of individual self-defense. The main distinction I want to defend should be understood as an interpretation of the standard distinction between ad bellum and in bello proportionality, which in my view has some advantages over the standard interpretation. Moreover, I want to advance some ideas about how to understand in bello proportionality under nonideal circumstances.