Law Commons^™

Slippages Of The Public/Private In Resource Wars, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

This paper demonstrates that the public/private distinction that undergirds the view that States have a monopoly of violence of the means to wage war while inaccurate continues to inform contemporary debates in international law in the context of conflicts over resources like diamonds. It shows how the sharp distinctions and boundaries between public and private realms in relation to the monopolization of violence contributes to the ambivalent commitments of the global legal order – and of international law in particular – in dealing with non-state actors engaged in initiating or starting wars in the context of resource wars. In short, …