ART. I. -- NATURE AND JUSTICE OF WAR.
113. War is a state of two or more nations contending by violence to maintain their right. -- Nations have rights as well as individuals; therefore, as individuals may maintain their rights by force, so also may nations; yet with this difference, that individuals may through virtue sacrifice their right, while nations in most cases cannot do so without failing in their duty to the citizens. War is said to be a state, because it includes the whole period of hostile feeling and action between the two nations. It is called a conflict of nations, for they are the subject and term of war. The definition adds by violence, to distinguish war from peaceful contention; and to maintain their right, to mark the end of just war.
114. War is either offensive or defensive. -- It is offensive when it attacks an enemy in peace; it is defensive when it repels the invasion of an enemy that has first attacked.
115. That a war be just, it is necessary: 1. that the cause be just; 2. that the war be truly inevitable; 3. that it be made by public authority; 4. that it be made with the purpose of procuring an honorable peace; 5. that it be publicly proclaimed; 6. that it be lawful in the means which it employs. -- 1. The motive of war should be the repairing of an important right violated in a determinate manner, and not a motive of glory or utility. 2. It should be inevitable: the evils brought on by war are so great that to make it legitimate all means ought to have been employed previously to settle the dispute peacefully. 3. Since war is a social act, it should be made by the authority of him who represents the society. 4. It should be made only in view of peace, since it is itself a state contrary to nature, and hence lawful only as a necessary means of restoring harmony between nations. 5. It should be preceded by a public proclamation, at least on the part of the aggressor, otherwise he would act as a pirate and not as a civilized man. 6. War should employ none but legitimate means.{1}
ART. II. -- DUTIES DURING AND AFTER WAR.
116. During the war no more damage should be done than is necessary to repulse the enemy and oblige him to repair the violated right; the laws of justice and humanity should be observed not only with neutral peoples, but also with the enemy. -- 1. No violence should be used upon neutral States, unless they are bound by some preceding treaty. 2. The license of soldiers should be held in check, so that they may cause no harm to inoffensive individuals, nor give themselves up to pillage and conflagration, nor outrage morality or religion.{2} 3. Faith should be kept in conventions, armistices, etc. 4. Peace should always be proposed as end, and should not be rejected when it can be granted on just conditions.
117. After the war, the conqueror should demand nothing more than is necessary to assure an honorable peace and to compensate for the damage caused by the war. -- The conqueror should be quided by the rules of justice and equity, and should not forget the ties of mutual love that still bind nations, even when one of them has been unfaithful to its duty.{3} Yet if the peace of his own nation or of other states require it, he may, if the war has been just, deprive the conquered nation of its independence.
{1} War begun to spread religion is unjust, but not war undertaken to defend it against evil aggressors.
{2} Hence it is forbidden to use means not necessary to repel the enemy and affecting those also who offer no violence; as the poisoning of water and food supplies, and the causing of pestilence.
{3} Killing in war is always indirect, as in cases of self-defence. Consequently, a similar train of reasoning is to be applied. In capital punishment only is the killing direct.