The justice of war depends not only on how it begins or is fought, but on when and how it ends. Yet just war theory-the most influential moral framework for thinking about armed conflict-has little to say about when a just war must stop.
The Morality and Law of Ending War offers the first systematic moral and legal account of when and how wars should conclude. Drawing on moral, political, and legal philosophy, formal ethics, and decision theory, Elad Uzan develops a comprehensive framework for determining when continued fighting becomes morally impermissible. He shows that a war may begin justly yet lose its justification as its humanitarian costs escalate, its aims shift, or the prospect of success diminishes. Uzan develops a theory of compromise and argues that compromise can, under strict conditions, be a morally legitimate way to end war and proposes a legal framework that extends the ad bellum constraints of necessity and proportionality across the duration of conflict, reshaping both the morality and the law of war termination. Written in clear, rigorous, and accessible prose, The Morality and Law of Ending War bridges traditional and revisionist approaches to just war theory, offering philosophers, legal theorists, and policymakers a principled guide to ending wars before justice turns into injustice.
