ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between the goal of protecting or achieving peace and the use of armed force, beginning with the status of relevant international law and turning to the sphere of moral analysis and debate. It focuses on the problem of reconstructing peace after an internal armed conflict and problem of sovereignty. The law of armed conflicts had two main foci: the definition of certain classes of people and property as deserving of protection during armed conflict and the definition of such protection in each case. The chapter shows that the bishops' position differs from those just discussed in that it explicitly undertakes to include just resort to force armed intervention to respond to gross violations of basic human rights as a possible moral option. It suggests that a problem in the appeal to human rights when thinking about the justification of armed intervention in contemporary conflicts is that there is agreement on only the most basic rights.
