A "Right to Peace" and Prosecuting the Crime of Aggression

Abstract

In discussing the legality or illegality of the use of force and its normative manifestation there is a universal yet inarticulate major premise posited, that at its simplest says, 'there is a right to peace". This right to peace and concomitant duty? to keep the peace inheres in the nation state but also, it is argued, in Individuals" through the operation of international human rights instruments and customary international law-. The laws that govern entry into and conduct of war (or arguably armed conflict) are traditionally divided into two, being, jus ad bellum and jus in bello', The contemporary arguments extending 'jus in bello principles into internal armed conflict just as cogently apply to jus ad oellum- .