ABSTRACT
Introduction: method and scope of the study Can war ever be just? This question has been asked in cultures as diverse as the USA and Iraq, in the past as well as the present, and has been answered in a variety of ways. Not only has this question been asked in specific cultural contexts, eliciting manifold responses, it has also been asked by international bodies comprising representatives from nations that, in the post-World War II era, have pushed for international laws governing military conflict. As scholars have made plain, international law regarding war, which prevails in cultures with and without a historical legacy of Christianity, has its origin in Christian ideas about military conflict. That is to say, international law tends to look back to Christian arguments about valid reasons for war as well as what constitutes proper conduct in war.2 Outside of Europe and the Americas, international laws about war have been assimilated (and sometimes rejected) by cultures that have different historical legacies and assumptions from the Christian West. For instance, although some Muslims spurn international law because of its connection to Christianity and thus to the West (which is perceived as an enemy of Islam), it is none the less the case that, in many Muslim cultures, international law and internal discourses on war “coexist as complementary systems.”3
