| This is a study of the ethics and international regulation of material and political reconstruction in the aftermath of war. It brings elements from contemporary ethics and positive political theory into the analysis of two fundamental approaches to post-war reconstruction in the history of modern political thought.;The first approach, classical just war theory, belongs to the early modern theory of natural law (Vitoria, Suarez, Grotius, Locke) and is essentially legalistic: it justifies war only in response to a violation of right and gives permission to wage war only to the injured party. Material reconstruction consists in the duty of the aggressor to repair for the injury that led to war and for losses caused during war. Political reconstruction aims to reduce the chances of future injustice by the aggressor via constitutional transformation, political takeover, and territorial annexation by the just side.;The second approach, regular war theory, belongs to the modern theory of the law of nations (Wolff, Vattel, Rousseau) and conceives of war as a privilege of sovereign rulers and belligerent groups, which may "choose" to solve their disputes through a formally regulated recourse to arms. Recognizing that international consensus about the ad bellum justice of particular wars is hard to achieve in practice, the theory excludes norms of jus ad bellum from the law of nations. War is seen as a catastrophe that affects unevenly and unfairly civilians and combatant, for which the theory postulates a general imperative to distribute the burdens of material reconstruction equitably. The theory is agnostic about the justice of political transformations caused by war, and defends a self-determination norm with a prudential constraint: unless the peace and stability of international society are at stake, political transformations in the aftermath of war must be validated by the population directly affected.;The dissertation emphasizes the normative appeal of the regular approach and cautions against excessive enthusiasm for the just war approach. This goes against a recent neo-classical turn in humanitarian and international legal discourse, in which imperatives of post-war accountability, corrective justice, and post-war constitutional transformation of unjust belligerents have regained widespread support. |
