The Morality Of Civil War

The ongoing fights are Yemen is getting worse and the (long) civil war in the small but (strategic well placed) Arab country could have a huge global impact since Yemen is situated close to the Bab Al Mandad, a waterway through which most of the world’s oil passes. The fighting in Yemen takes place between the new established government led by President Abdurabuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi, a small minority Shia religious group that formed an alliance with the former president, that controls parts of the military.

The Yemen crisis is widely seen as a proxy war between its neighbors Saudi Arabia which shares its borders with Yemen (Sunni-ruled backing Hadi) and Iran (Shia-ruled backing Houthi rebels). The conflict in Yemen had been described as the largest humanitarian crisis of this convention, nonetheless, humanitarian intervention according to quite a few Just War theorists is problematic. There is an inevitable conflict between humanitarian goals and war, as war unavoidable brings suffering and death, precisely what humanitarian intervention aims to end . Humanitarian interventions are associated with legal and political risks. A moment’s reflection on the emphasis that the jus ad bellum rules of Just War Theory place on defence of sovereignty explain why this might be the case. This brings me to my leading question: “What conditions must be met for a civil war to be considered just and it is possible to apply the same rules of Jus ad bellum in Just war theory on civil wars?”

I will start giving an overview about war and its assumption and a brief introduction into Just War Theory, after that I will focus on the morality of civil wars and its relation to humanitarian intervention focusing on the request of President Hadi to create stability in the region in means of self-defense and to protect the Yemeni people from the Houthi aggression as a means of humanitarian intervention. After that I will go back to my original question and discuss the difference between domestic and interstate conflicts its relation to Just War theory.

War and its assumptions

War is widely accepted as a state of armed conflict between countries or different groups within a country, however, if war is understood as a relationship between collectives, how does Just War Theory deal with civil wars? Just War Theory deals with the morality and justification of how and why wars are fought. Just War Theory is categorised into 3 groups: jus ad bellum (the right to go to war), jus in bello (right to conduct war) and jus post bellum (justice after war). The first deals with what conditions must be met to have a legitimate and just reason to go to war. The second deals with how to morally fight and the third is concerned with how to deal with the victors and losers of wars, more precisely what the loser owns its successor. War is fought under the assumption to either enforce political dominance over another state or as a state of self-defense over the aggression coming from another state or as a humanitarian intervention to ensure human rights. Civil Wars vs Ordinary Wars All definitions of civil war rotate around its two basic assumptions; first, a conflict is a civil war, when it is fought within the territory of a single state and second, its level of violence is lower. It is widely accepted that for domestic strife to be considered as civil war, it must threaten the sovereign’s authority and effective control over the state . Civil wars, however, do have a difference in standing in Just War theory and tend to be undertheorized by its scholars. Two additional important characteristics of civil wars are that they tend to make use of unconventional warfare and that they lack a traditional battlefield, which has implications for the immunity of civilians.

The rules of Just War theory mainly apply to interstate conflicts whilst domestic context tend to fall under Protocol II and Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the first international legal provision for humanitarian intervention for domestic conflicts, and is applicable to all fighting parties and apply to all equally, regardless of the reasons and source of fighting they aim to protect the civilian immunity . Article 3 includes the rights to humane treatment, which includes forbidding acts of violence such as murder and mutilation and murder against non-participants, but also promises the right for a fair trial. However, those rules do not apply on rebels when they become prisoners of war, they are excluded from immunity and prosecution even when they fight according to the laws of the Geneva Conventions.

The morality of Civil Wars and Humanitarian Interventions

Humanitarian intervention, according to several Just War scholars is by nature problematic, since there is an inevitable conflict between humanitarian goals and war. War will bring death and suffering, whilst humanitarian intervention aims to end death and suffering. Hadi, the president, and therefore sovereign of Yemen has called for international support under article 51 of the UN Charter, which applies to international conflicts. To justify his decision, he argued that the involvement of Iran makes the Yemen conflict an interstate conflict, however, there was a lack of evidence of such involvement at the time. Considering the fact that at that time, the justification based on Iranian was not accepted, Hadi’s request would have fallen under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol II. In a letter to the UN the coalition countries Saudi-Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and UAE and Bahrain argued that the need for collective self-defense is at stake because “the presence of heavy weapons and short and long-range missiles beyond the control of the legitimate authorities [in Yemen] poses a grave and ongoing threat to our countries… They [the Houthis] recently carried out large-scale military exercises using medium and heavy weapons, with live ammunition, near the Saudi Arabian border. The Houthi militias have already carried out a bare-faced and unjustified attack on the territory of Saudi Arabia, in November 2009, and their current actions make it clear.”

The conflict in Yemen shows that there are implications when it comes to the justification of war in just war theories and how those implications complicate how to deal with warfare. The problem is that Just War theory concerns itself with civil wars, the moment they count as an interstate affair. The practical implications of the interstate condition is enormous because it creates a legal scope for countries to not be able to call for self-defense even if it is needed. Furthermore, it has an impact on the civil society of the country in which the war is taken place. One of the cornerstones in Just War theory and humanitarian law is the immunity of civilians. However, in civil wars those cannot be accounted for. When fighting war within in the boundaries of a society, the protection of the civilians needs stricter rules to minimize the harm they will face . Especially since civil wars tend to be longer, on average they last about seven years, with a high chance to reoccur if not properly settled. Interstate wars in contrast only last about 6 month on average.

Back to the research question:” What conditions must be met for a civil war to be considered just and it is possible to apply the same rules of Jus ad bellum in Just war theory on civil wars?” For a civil war to be considered just it is important to consider the cause and whether the intentions of the conflict, since these will determine whether or not the conflict itself is just. However, the rules of jus ad bellum in Just War theory cannot fully be applied on civil wars, this also goes especially for the case of humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian interventions in Just War theory only account for interstate conflicts and humanitarian interventions of civil wars fall under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol II.

To conclude, civil wars can be just, but the rules jus ad bellum in Just War theory, to be more precise the criteria for just cause and right intention cannot be applied, since Just War theory applied on armed international contexts, whilst civil wars tend to be a domestic armed conflict. Not only do civil wars lack a traditional battleground and make use of unconventional warfare, they also fall under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and Protocol II, which basically means that Just War theory does not account for the cases of domestic context unless there is an interstate factor, but this should be considered much more of a pre-emptive strategy rather than an account of self-defense. Jus ad bellum might be helpful to determine whether the outbreak of a civil war is justified, but it does not deal with how a civil war should be fought, especially since civil wars lack the traditional fighting ground and their unconventional fighting style or how to properly end a war.