Necessity in International Law

This book traces the various uses of the concept of necessity in international law, with the goal of determining whether there is any over-arching unity to these uses across the sub-disciplines of international law. The authors not only discuss necessity in international humanitarian law (IHL) and jus in bello, but also aim to situate necessity as understood in IHL within a larger discourse of international law generally. They untangle the confusing and often inconsistent usages of the term "necessity" in these broad areas of international law, including human rights law. The authors argue that necessity in international law has three different conceptions that cut across the various domains: necessity as exception, necessity as license, and necessity as regulation. In this book, the authors describe how these conceptions differ, and analyze them from a normative standpoint, arguing that necessity by exception requires principled restrictions (as found in international criminal law). They go on to explore necessity as a license in IHL, and offer an articulate and workable standard for its curtailment. Further, the authors' methodology is to interrogate the basic theoretical structure of the law through philosophical investigations, including the analysis of historical and contemporary "Just War Theory," and to determine whether the law ought to be revised or not.

Jens David Ohlin is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Cornell Law School. He specializes in international law and criminal law. He specifically focuses on the laws of war with special emphasis on the effects of new technology on the waging of warfare, including unmanned drones in the strategy of targeted killings, cyber-warfare, and the role of non-state actors in armed conflicts. He authored The Assault on International Law (Oxford, 2015).

Larry May is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law, and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He has published over thirty books, including book length studies of each of the four crimes under the ICC's jurisdiction. These books have won awards in philosophy, law, and international relations. He has also published extensively on the history of the just war tradition, especially on the work of Grotius and Hobbes. He co-authored Proportionality in International Law (with Michael Newton, Oxford, 2014), and Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Affairs (Oxford, 2013).