ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces one of the seminal figures in the historical development of the just war tradition: Francis Lieber. Jurists and publicists largely remember Lieber for being the first to collect and write down the various ideas and theories that had been posited for centuries in a convenient and comprehensible way. His pamphlet would go on to have a major impact on discussions about the restraints on the use of force in Europe and play a major role in the development of the laws of war and the development of national military manuals. Although Lieber believes that war can produce good, he is keenly aware that it can produce evil. Lieber is clear that what governs the use of force in these conflicts is the principle of military necessity: states may only engage in activities that help them achieve the object of war, anything else is superfluous and prohibited.
