A call to arms at the end of history: a discourse-historical analysis of George W. Bush's declaration of war on terror

In this article we take a discourse-historical approach to illustrate the significance of George W Bush's (2001) declaration of a 'war on terror'. We present four exemplary 'call to arms' speeches by Pope Urban 11 (1095), Queen Elizabeth I (1588), Adolf Hitler (1938) and George W Bush (2001) to exemplify the structure, function, and historical significance of such texts in western societies over the last millennium. We identify four generic features that have endured in such texts throughout this period: (i) an appeal to a legitimate power source that is external to the orator, and which is presented as inherently good; (ii) an appeal to the historical importance of the culture in which the discourse is situated; (iii) the construction of a thoroughly evil Other; and (iv) an appeal for unification behind the legitimating external power source. We argue further that such texts typically appear in historical contexts characterized by deep crises in political legitimacy.

Supreme Emergencies and the protection of non-combatants in war

Is it ever justifiable to target non-combatants deliberately? This article assesses Michael Walzer's claim that the deliberate targeting of non-combatants may be justifiable during 'supreme emergencies', a view that has received some support but that has elicited little debate. It argues that the supreme emergencies exception to the prohibition on targeting non-combatants is problematic for at least four reasons. First, its utilitarianism contradicts Walzer's wider ethics of war based on a conception of human rights. Second, the exception may undermine the principle of non-combatant immunity. Third, it is based on a historical fallacy. Finally, it is predicated on a strategic fallacy-the idea that killing noncombatants can win wars. The case for rejecting the exception, however, has been opposed by those who persuasively argue that it is wrong to tie leaders' hands when they confront supreme emergencies. The final part of the article addresses this question and suggests that the principle of proportionality may give political leaders room for manoeuvre in supreme emergencies without permitting them deliberately to target non-combatants.

Children and war

Children bear disproportionate consequences of armed conflict. The 21st century continues to see patterns of children enmeshed in international violence between opposing combatant forces, as victims of terrorist warfare, and, perhaps most tragically of all, as victims of civil wars. Innocent children so often are the victims of high-energy wounding from military ordinance. They sustain high-energy tissue damage and massive burns - injuries that are not commonly seen in civilian populations. Children have also been deliberately targeted victims in genocidal civil wars in Africa in the past decade, and hundreds of thousands have been killed and maimed in the context of close-quarter, hand-to-hand assaults of great ferocity. Paediatricians serve as uniformed military surgeons and as civilian doctors in both international and civil wars, and have a significant strategic role to play as advocates for the rights and welfare of children in the context of the evolving 'Laws of War'. One chronic legacy of contemporary warfare is blast injury to children from landmines. Such blasts leave children without feet or lower limbs, with genital injuries, blindness and deafness. This pattern of injury has become one of the post-civil war syndromes encountered by all intensivists and surgeons serving in four of the world's continents. The continued advocacy for the international ban on the manufacture, commerce and military use of antipersonnel landmines is a part of all paediatricians' obligation to promote the ethos of the Laws of War. Post-traumatic stress disorder remains an undertreated legacy of children who have been trapped in the shot and shell of battle as well as those displaced as refugees. An urgent, unfocused and unmet challenge has been the increase in, and plight of, child soldiers themselves. A new class of combatant comprises these children, who also become enmeshed in the triad of anarchic civil war, light-weight weaponry and drug or alcohol addiction. The International Criminal Court has outlawed as a War Crime, the conscription of children under 15 years of age. Nevertheless, there remain more than 300 000 child soldiers active and enmeshed in psychopathic violence as part of both civil and international warfare. The typical profile of a child soldier is of a boy between the ages of 8 and 18 years, bonded into a group of armed peers, almost always an orphan, drug or alcohol addicted, amoral, merciless, illiterate and dangerous. Paediatricians have much to do to protect such war-enmeshed children, irrespective of the accident of their place of birth. Only by such vigorous and maintained advocacy can the world's children be better protected from the scourge of future wars.

Ethics and intervention: The 'humanitarian exception' and the problem of abuse in the case of Iraq

This article investigates the ethics of intervention and explores the decision to invade Iraq. It begins by arguing that while positive international law provides an important framework for understanding and debating the legitimacy of war, it does not cover the full spectrum of moral reasoning on issues of war and peace. To that end, after briefly discussing the two primary legal justifications for war (implied UN authorization and pre-emptive self-defence), and finding them wanting, it asks whether there is a moral 'humanitarian exceptions to this rule grounded in the 'just war' tradition. The article argues that two aspects of the broad tradition could be used to make a humanitarian case for war: the 'holy war' tradition and classical just war thinking based on natural law. The former it finds problematic, while the latter it argues provides a moral space to justify the use of force to halt gross breaches of natural law. Although such an approach may provide a moral justification for war, it also opens the door to abuse. It was this very problem that legal positivism from Vattel onwards was designed to address. As a result, the article argues that natural law and legal positivist arguments should be understood as complementary sets of ideas whose sometimes competing claims must be balanced in relation to particular cases. Therefore, although natural law may open a space for justifying the invasion of Iraq on humanitarian terms, legal positivism strictly limits that right. Ignoring this latter fact, as happened in the Iraq case, opens the door to abuse.

Peace beyond the State? NGOs in Bosnia and Herzegovina

By examining the work of several NGOs in the context of post-conflict reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), this essay scrutinizes both the potential and limits of NGO contributions to peace-settlements and long-term stability. While their ability to specialize and reach the grassroots level is of great practical significance, the contribution of NGOs to the reconstruction of war-torn societies is often idealized. NGOs remain severely limited by ad hoc and project-specific funding sources, as well as by the overall policy environment in which they operate. Unless these underlying issues are addressed, NGOs will ultimately become little more than extensions of prevalent multilateral and state-based approaches to post-conflict reconstruction.

A rogue is a rogue is a rogue: US foreign policy and the Korean nuclear crisis

Two nuclear crises recently haunted the Korean peninsula, one in 1993/4, the other in 2002/3. In each case the events-were strikingly similar: North Korea made public its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons and withdrew from the Nonproliferation Treaty. Then the situation rapidly deteriorated until the peninsular was literally on the verge of war. The dangers of North Korea's actions, often interpreted as nuclear brinkmanship, are evident. and much discussed, but not so the underlying patterns that have shaped the conflict in the first place. This article sheds light on some of them. It examines the role of the United States in the crisis, arguing that Washington's inability to see North Korea as anything but a threatening 'rogue state' seriously hinders both an adequate understanding and possible resolution of the conflict. Particularly significant is the current policy of pre-emptive strikes against rogue states, for it reinforces half a century of American nuclear threats towards North Korea. The problematic role of these threats has been largely obscured, not least because the highly technical discourse of security analysis has managed to present the strategic situation on the peninsula in a manner that attributes responsibility for the crisis solely to North Korea's actions, even if the situation is in reality far more complex and interactive.

The medical zoologist - Ronald Vernon Southcott

Dr Ronald Vernon Southcott (1918–1998) was amongst the greatest of the Australian doctor-naturalists. His toxinological contributions included the description and naming of the box-jellyfish, Chironex fleckeri, the first definitive study (1950–1957) of the toxinology, taxonomy and biology of Australian scorpions; and the first observations in Australia of the introduced fiddleback spider, Loxosceles. His research into the medical effects of toxic fungi, poisonous plants and Australian insects was extensive. He was a founding member of the International Society on Toxinology and served on the Toxicon Editorial Board for more than 30 years. He also made extensive contributions to acarology, and to the taxonomy of mites, specifically the sub-families and genera of the Erythraeoidea. This prodigious output was achieved by one who, with the exception of war service (1942–1946), almost never travelled outside South Australia, was almost entirely self-funded and worked from his home laboratory. With Dr. P.D. Scott and C.J. Glover, he was also the authority on the fish of South Australia. Dr. Southcott was also a medical epidemiologist and senior medical administrator (1949–1978) with the Australian Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs. He served for 30 years as an Honorary Consultant in Toxicology to the Adelaide Children's Hospital. As a zoologist and botanist of astounding breadth, he worked indefatigably in a voluntary capacity for the South Australian Museum, of which he was Museum Board Chairman from 1974 to 1982. In the pantheon of the great doctor-naturalists who have worked in Australia, he stands with Robert Brown and Thomas Lane Bancroft.