Terrorism and the Right to Resist A Theory of Just Revolutionary War

The words 'rebellion' and 'revolution' have gained renewed prominence in the vocabulary of world politics and so has the question of justifiable armed 'resistance'. In this book Christopher J. Finlay extends just war theory to provide a rigorous and systematic account of the right to resist oppression and of the forms of armed force it can justify. He specifies the circumstances in which rebels have the right to claim recognition as legitimate actors in revolutionary wars against domestic tyranny and injustice, and wars of liberation against wrongful foreign occupation and colonialism. Arguing that violence is permissible only in a narrow range of cases, Finlay shows that the rules of engagement vary during and between different conflicts and explores the potential for irregular tactics to become justifiable, such as non-uniformed guerrillas and civilian disguise, the assassination of political leaders and regime officials, and the waging of terrorist war against civilian targets.

1. Introduction; Part I. Theory and Principles: 2. Justice, oppression and the right to resist; 3. Rights worth killing for; 4. The codes of resistance; 5. Rights worth dying for: distributing the costs of resistance; Part II. Wars of Liberation: Fighting within the Standard JIB: 6. Non-state groups and the authority to wage war; 7. Guerrilla war, discrimination and the problem of lawful irregulars; Part III. Fighting beyond the Law of War: 8. The partisan jus in bello: resistance beyond the laws of war; 9. Terrorist war; 10. Back to the start: the ethics of beginning; Conclusions.

Christopher J. Finlay is Reader in Political Theory in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham. He previously taught history at Trinity College Dublin and political philosophy at University College Dublin.