"Most civilian casualties in war are not the result of direct exposure to bombs and bullets; they are due to the destruction of the essentials of daily living, including food, water, shelter, and health care."
So begins the abstract for an essay in the Winter 2017 edition of Daedalus by Stanford Health Policy鈥檚 Paul Wise, the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and professor of pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine.
Wise argues in his essay, 鈥淭he Epidemiologic Challenge to the Conduct of Just War: Confronting Indirect Civilian Casualties of War," that the death of any child is always a tragedy. But the death of a child from preventable causes is particularly unjust.
鈥淭his is, of course, as true in peacetime as it is in war,鈥 he writes. 鈥淢y argument is that the dramatic growth in our ability to prevent death and disability from the indirect effects of war generates not only humanitarian impulses, but also just war demands for the provision of this capability to populations affected by war.鈥
The 亚色影库app & Sciences devoted its Fall 2016 and Winter 2017 issues of its journal, Daedalus, to the theory of Just War. It held its 204th annual meeting at Stanford University in November, with Wise reviewing the main points of his essay. Other speakers included Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and FSI's Scott Sagan and Joe Felter.