Tort Liability for Belligerent Wrongs
39(4) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 808-833 (2019)
39 Pages Posted: 4 Oct 2019 Last revised: 27 Oct 2022
Date Written: July 19, 2019
Abstract
Most legal systems deny civilians a right to compensation for losses they sustain during warfare. Arguments for recognising such a right are usually divorced, to various degrees, from the moral and legal underpinnings of the notion of inflicting a wrongful loss under either international humanitarian law or domestic tort law. My aim in this article is to advance a novel account of states’ tortious liability for belligerent wrongdoing, drawing on both international humanitarian law and corrective justice approaches to domestic tort law. Structuring my account on both frameworks, I argue that some of the losses that states inflict during war are private law wrongs that establish a claim of compensation in tort. Only in cases where the in bello principles are observed can losses to person and property be justified and non-wrongful. Otherwise, they constitute wrongs, which those who inflict them have duties of corrective justice to repair.
Keywords: tort liability, tort law, warfare, war, international humanitarian law, corrective justice, compensation
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