Human rights and jus contra bellum

Abstract

The practice of protecting human rights, initiated after the second world war with the purpose of avoiding wars for future generations, has evolved with some ambiguities to the point that the initial opposition between the protection of rights and war, seems reversed. Human rights have become elements of a jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus ex bello, instead of elements of a jus contra bellum. This evolution ought to be considered a failure of the original project. It is to be attributed to the resistance of the States to change in accordance to their own propositions, as well as to the survival of the vocabulary and the logic of natural rights that are not human rights. The logic of human rights and the logic of war are still incompatible.