ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by elaborating a conception of legitimate authority, which empties the concept of linguistic and substantive baggage that has accrued over centuries in the just war tradition. It outlines the concept of monopolization over military authorization. The chapter considers and rejects a prominent argument against public monopolization: Ccile Fabre's cosmopolitan critique. The stronger case relied upon questionable intuitions, and the weaker case, which aimed to shore up these intuitions, collapsed into a theory of legitimate authority. The resulting theory could not establish a private right of military authorization since the stringent constraints placed upon decision-making left doubt about whether decision-making remained private in the relevant sense. More importantly, the theory itself could not explain why authorizing entities ought to be concerned only with the consent of their constituents. The chapter concludes that the stronger and weaker cosmopolitan defenses of private military authorization have faltered and that the public monopolization of military authorization remains unchallenged.
