Abstract

This article offers some considerations on the role of the political community and law vis-à-vis the practice and narrative of war, particularly taking up the old ideal of a just war. What constitutes a legitimate act of war (ius ad bellum) has changed over the centuries, leading to a Jus Publicum Europaeum where the notion of «duel» to sort out political conflict was centre stage. The 20th Century, with its tragedies, forced political communities and scholars to reshape the principles and ideals on which the international order was meant to function. The article’s main argument revolves around the feasibility of a contemporary pacifist view by reconciling a philosophical-political approach to armed conflicts with law theory and public international law. The gist of the paper is an analysis and discussion of the report that Kelsen wrote on the so-called Chicago World Constitution Draft (1947). It lets us cast light on Kelsen’s «legal pacifism» veined with political realism. Considering what came after those years of renewed hopes for a world without war, the paper argues that Kelsen’s ideas concerning a gradual evolution of international law and institutions towards legal cosmopolitism are still worth being reckoned with, along with the caution that the law alone cannot lead to perpetual peace.