cular Sources of Just War TheoryThe secular sources for just war theory span a considerable length of time. They include such philosophers as the ancient Roman Cicero and the Dutch Protestant Hugo Grotius. In addition, modern decrees on justifiable warfare, such as the commission to theNuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and the United Nations Charter also act to flush out the modern conception of just war theory.Cicero, the great Roman orator, jurist, and philosopher was one of the first to deal with the questions of justifiable war. Cicero held that the use of force was justifiable only when the war was declared by an appropriate governmental authority acting within specific limits.(33) For Cicero, the ability to wage war rested with the state, and the state alone, and could be lawfully waged only "after an official demand for satisfaction has been submitted or warning has been given and a formal declaration made."(34) In addition, Cicero also proposed the existence of a universal norm for human behaviour which transcended the laws of individual nations and governed their relations with each other. (35) Cicero's belief in this universal norm was grounded in his view that there was a humani generis societas, a "society of mankind [sic] rather than of states."(36) This view of a universal standard of behaviour for nation-states which exists outside of promulgated law would have a profound impact on later just war theorists, particularly on Hugo Grotius. Grotius was a 16th century Dutch Protestant who is sometimes referred to as the father of international law.(37) Grotius, who lived in the aftermath of the brutal Thirty-Years War in Europe, wrote extensively on the right of nations to use force in self-defence in his book Jure Belli ac Pacis ("On the Rights of War and Peace"), which was published in 1625.(38) It was largely Grotius who secularised just war theory,(39) making the theory more acceptable for the age of the Enlightenment. For Gro...
