Can war be just?

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, University of Manchester (Political Theory), language: English, abstract: The question of whether war can be justified is not in any way provided with neither a simple nor easy answer. As much as one would not like to admit it, it is nevertheless only in an idealised world, in a More's utopia, that we can be certain that no war nor armed conflict will ever happen. In the meantime, wars continue to be fought and justified with reference to certain moral and legal values that may or may not make them legitimate in the context of the Westphalian State System upon which the current international society is based.In the following paper I will examine the question of whether war can be just through a case analysis of the conflict that took place between Russia and Georgia from the 7th - 16th of August 2008, also known as the Russo-Georgian War, the August War or simply the 2008 South Ossetia War