Conclusion

Abstract

This concluding chapter revisits the idea that states no longer rationalize their violence against each other as part of a longstanding tradition of going to war. It therefore highlights that it is no longer appropriate to apply the logic of war that justifies killing, detention and destruction as part of the necessities of war. The chapter recalls how governments claim belligerent rights to acquire territory and neutral ships, to destroy things they consider are part of the enemy's war-sustaining economy, and to intern people as law of war detainees. It suggests that aspects of old ideas about what is permissible in war have survived, when many of them should have been buried along with the legal institution of War.