After War Ends : a Philosophical Perspective.

With After War Ends, May (Vanderbilt Univ.; War Crimes and Just War, CH, Mar'08, 45-4037) fills a lacuna in the just war literature. Most studies concentrate, almost exclusively, on the justice of going to war (jus ad bellum) or on the just conduct of war (jus in bello). By contrast, relatively little is written about the normative principles governing postwar justice (jus post bellum). Working broadly within the just war tradition, May draws on the great modern theorist Grotius, who articulated rights-based principles of promoting peace and protecting human rights in the aftermath of war. May then employs these principles to develop nuanced accounts of reparations, restitution, reconciliation, retribution, rebuilding, and proportionality, and to apply them to contemporary cases like Darfur. May contends that jus post bellum ought to be more tightly integrated into jus ad bellum: "when war has little hope of achieving a just and lasting peace its initiation is not likely to be morally justifiable." Thus he ultimately defends a "contingent pacifism" (a prima facie burden of proof against war) so as to (quoting the UN Preamble) "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. S. D. Lake Trinity Christian College