Are the Citizens of a Democracy a Just Target for Terrorists?

Abstract

This article investigates how issues of political responsibility connect to the combatant/civilian distinction in armed conflict. It does so by looking at an attempted moral justification of terrorism in a democracy by a just war theorist. The attempt was by Igor Primoratz, who claims that civilians who actively support injustice do not merit immunity from targeting. Primoratz suggests amending the principle of civilian immunity to permit targeting of civilians who are culpable for an unjust war. This article argues that culpability plays no role in the justification of targeting combatants and cannot be used to justify the targeting of civilians. Combatants may be targeted in war because of a convention-dependent permission that they may be treated as instruments. Civilians may not be targeted in war because no such convention-dependent permission exists (and there are no benefits to creating such a convention). Nor can the justification of self-defence be used to justify the targeting of civilians in armed conflict because there is a threshold of culpability to be met before self-defence is permitted, and the citizens of a democracy do not meet that minimum standard.

Keywords:

• civilian
• immunity
• terrorism
• just war
• targeting
• democracy

Notes

The position Primoratz put forward in 2007 with respect to Iraq hinges on the same practical considerations: ‘Enemy civilians who could be considered eligible for attack … would virtually always live thoroughly intermingled with other enemy civilians who would not be eligible … There is no way of making sure that in an attack on a civilian target, only the former are hit, while the latter emerge unscathed’ (Primoratz, 2007: 35).

To describe the person as ‘attacker’ or ‘aggressor’, as occurs in discussion of this issue, may seem to imply wrongdoing on their part, the very issue being investigated here.

The position outlined – but not recommended – by Grotius removes questions of justice and morality from the issue of SD. An unlimited right to self-defend negates attempts to limit violence, which was the Dutch jurist's greatest concern. He thus urges us not to avail of this natural law right.

Rodin's phrase ‘moral asymmetry’ may seem to suggest that even the slightest modicum of responsibility for a fault (however small) will suffice to generate a significant difference between the victim and the PDA; but for him it is not the case, in a situation in which either the attacker or the attacked is to die, that even the slightest difference in moral standing between the two can be allowed to decide the issue. Moral asymmetry is not enough for Rodin; the ‘normative connection’ must be ‘sufficiently substantive’ (Rodin, 2002: 89).

These rules can be found in legal form in the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907 as updated in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as applied to irregular war by the Additional Protocols of 1977.