"An end to war" [2019] ELECD 811; in McIlroy, David (ed), "The End of Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 36

Book Title: The End of Law

Editor(s): McIlroy, David

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: An end to war

Number of pages: 19

Abstract/Description:

Law’s implication in violence cannot be denied. Law employs force in order to enact what it calls justice. The threat of force, both the force exerted by the law and the violence which would exist apart from the law, is essential to law. The regimes which establish legal systems have violent origins. The modern state does not claim a monopoly on violence, rather it subjects all violence within its domain to the requirement of justification. Law promises those who it treats as subjects that its rules are of benefit to them because they will be followed by all those to whom they apply. Those a legal system treats as mere objects, such as chattel-slaves, are not subject to law they are objects of violence. Where the law protects no-one effectively against violence, the legal system has collapsed entirely; the regime is nothing more than a band of robbers