Innocent Civilians

by Colm McKeogh

"Why may soldiers be killed in war? Why may civilians not be killed? Justice requires that innocent civilians should not be targeted in war; as innocents, the justification of punitive killing does not apply to them; as non-combatants, the justification of preventative killing does not apply to them; as civilians, the justification of consensual killing does not apply to them. Innocent Civilians traces the complex and tangled evolution of the principle of noncombatant immunity in Western thought from its medieval religious origins to its modern legal status. In doing so, it highlights the unsuccessful attempts to reconcile warfare with the West's most fundamental principle of justice: that the life of an innocent person should not be taken as a means to an end, however good or noble. It concludes by pointing to the changes required in the legal status of civilians and soldiers in war."--BOOK JACKET.