War Crimes and a Just Peace in Ukraine
Some Ethical Reflections on Recent Events
The Christian just-war tradition emerged, according to the Methodist theologian Paul Ramsey, out of the tension between Christ’s command to love our enemies and that to love our neighbor as ourselves. Out of love for neighbor, Christians are called to defend them when they are unjustly attacked, but out of love for the enemy, moral restraints are placed on the use of violence. As theologians down the centuries influenced by the fourth-century Church Father St. Augustine have claimed, the proper end for a just war is not the elimination of the enemy, but rather establishing a just peace. Of course, many Christians have questioned whether the practice of war can ever lead to a truly just peace and have therefore adopted an ethic of nonviolence.
Christian just-war thinkers gradually developed criteria for thinking through what could be considered just and proportionate causes for war, elaborated the principle of noncombatant discrimination, and likewise considered when the unintended destruction of civilian life and property by force could be considered proportionate (The Dominican and Jesuit theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries played a key role in these developments, but I have written enough about them lately…). This tradition had a profound influence on the modern international law of war, including the Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, and the Rome Statute of 1998, which for the most part embody just-war principles. That being said, the international law of war and the Christian just-war tradition have different functions. The former is a secular, legal framework aimed at regulating the conduct of nations, while the latter is a more comprehensive theological and ethical framework aimed at promoting Christian discipleship for government decision-makers, soldiers, and citizens (I will return to this point later).
One of the purposes of the international law of war is to identify certain military actions as “war crimes” and to provide mechanisms for holding war criminals accountable. Most often, war crimes involve violations of the principle of noncombatant immunity, namely the killing or wounding of civilians and the destruction of civilian property, but they can also include, for example, the use of prohibited forms of weaponry, like chemical and biological weapons, on the battlefield. Two recent incidents carried out by Russian soldiers or operatives in the conduct of the war in Ukraine, both of which will most certainly be considered war crimes, illustrate both the changing nature of warfare and evolving thinking about war crimes. First, earlier this month, Russian operatives allegedly conducted an explosion at the Kakhova dam in southern Ukraine, causing significant flooding. Second, Russian hackers have allegedly conducted DDoS hacking attacks on Russian emergency medical services and hospitals to hinder emergency efforts in response to the bombing of civilian areas. I will analyze both of these incidents below, then close with some thoughts on how these incidents might impact our thinking about a “just peace” from a Christian perspective.
On June 6, the Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region of Ukraine collapsed, inundating the surrounding region and causing thousands of residents to evacuate. Although there are multiple theories regarding what caused the collapse, both seismic data and intelligence gathering suggest that it was triggered by an explosion carried out by Russian operatives. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister has claimed the flooding was caused intentionally to prevent Ukrainian troops from advancing into the region.
The dam, which also served as a hydroelectric station, held back a reservoir that provided clean water for drinking and irrigation to the surrounding region, much of which is under Russian occupation. The hydroelectric station also provided electricity to the region. Likewise, the reservoir provided water for cooling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and so with its destruction, the operators of the plant were forced to shut down its reactors. The explosion, therefore, not only displaced thousands of people, but greatly disrupted everyday life for thousands more.
The explosion and ensuing flood were also an ecological disaster. Not only were thousands of acres of farmland destroyed, but pesticides from farms, petroleum, and other chemicals have been mixed into the flood waters, spreading those toxic substances over the flooded areas. Perhaps thousands of animals were killed in the flood, and breeding and resting areas for migratory birds were destroyed.
If the attribution of the dam collapse to nefarious action by Russians is correct, then this is without a doubt a war crime. What makes the destruction of the dam especially significant are the potential reasons for considering it a war crime. Under the existing laws of war, the destruction of the dam is a war crime because of the extensive damage to civilian property and infrastructure and the potential loss of human life. Ukrainian officials, however, have also argued that the destruction of the dam should be considered “ecocide,” a crime against the environment.
This is not the first time that Ukraine has accused Russia of “ecocide.” In November of 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presented the international community with a 10-point “Peace Formula.” In it, he called for an end to acts of “ecocide” on the part of Russia, such as the burning of forests, destruction of animal life, and pollution of the soil with toxins.
As I explain in more detail in an essay in the forthcoming second edition of Green Discipleship: Catholic Theological Ethics and the Environment (edited by Tobias Winright), international law has increasingly recognized the destruction of the environment during war as a crime. These crimes can be addressed through financial liability or prosecution. For example, after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations Compensation Commission awarded over $5.26 billion in compensation for the remediation and restoration of the environment in response to Iraq’s deliberate causing of oil spills in the Persian Gulf and burning of Kuwaiti oil wells.
The Rome Statute of 1998, which established the International Criminal Court and defined the war crimes prosecutable by the court, identified the intentional infliction of environmental damage that is “widespread, long-term, and severe” as a war crime. International legal scholars have lamented that these criteria are so stringent that many crimes against the environment will go unpunished, but the destruction of the Kakhovka dam may indeed qualify.
This growing recognition of “ecocide” as a crime is a significant ethical development. For one, it shows that there is an increased appreciation for the intrinsic value of the natural environment, or at least a perception of its value in ecological terms rather than as simply “property.” Second, it demonstrates that peace cannot be considered merely a human affair, but rather requires attention to the harm caused to the environment and our fragile relationship with that environment. These developments are a vivid illustration of Pope Francis’s notion of “integral ecology” proposed in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’.
The American internet infrastructure company Cloudflare has reported that there have been spikes in “distributed denial-of-service” (DDoS) attacks on Ukrainian emergency response services (providing search and rescue and ambulance services) around the times that Russia carries out bombing campaigns on Ukrainian civilian population centers. A DDoS attack occurs when hackers flood a computer system, network, or web site with requests for access, overwhelming and temporarily shutting down the target. In this case, the intent appears to be to hamper emergency response services, maximizing civilian casualties. Although Cloudflare is not capable of attributing the attacks, it seems apparent that the DDoS attacks are being carried out by Russian intelligence services or hackers in some form employed by the Russian government. Cloudflare’s report comes after a report by Microsoft in March finding that the Russian hacker group KillNet has been conducting similar DDoS attacks against Ukrainian hospitals.
Whereas the destruction of the Kakhovka dam represents a type of war crime with a long history that political leaders, legal scholars, and ethicists are looking at in a new way, DDoS attacks and other types of cyber attacks against civilian infrastructure, like those mentioned above, reflect the changing nature of warfare today and require fresh thinking about the nature of war crimes. The war in Ukraine is perhaps the first major war in which “cyber warfare” has been fully integrated into the war effort on both sides. Both Russia and Ukraine have sophisticated hacking capabilities and have unleashed those capabilities on their enemies. Tthe United States has also admitted that it is conducting “offensive cyber operations” on behalf of Ukraine.
Although conducting DDoS attacks on emergency response services and hospitals, temporarily taking their computer systems online to slow down or hinder humanitarian efforts, may seem like a clear-cut example of a war crime, there are some complexities that first need to be examined. Elsewhere (for example here and, more extensively, in an essay in the T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Ethics), I have tried to work out how traditional Christian just-war reasoning can apply to the new realities of cyber warfare, and here I am drawing on those efforts.
The cybersecurity scholar Martin C. Libicki points out that there are two basic types of cyber warfare. The first includes attacks on computer systems conducted in conjunction with conventional combat activity and aimed at limiting the enemy’s war-fighting capability, such as cyber attacks on the enemy’s weapons systems or radar systems. The second type includes cyber attacks conducted separately from conventional combat activity but that cause such severe harm to civilian or military computer systems that they could be considered an “act of war.” Hypothetically, this might include, for example, an attack causing a nuclear reactor to melt down.
That last condition is crucial because, as I have noted previously, the rhetoric of “cyber warfare” has been used recklessly in recent years. If a similar DDoS attack was conducted against a hospital during peacetime, it would be considered a crime, even a serious one. Indeed, the United States is in the midst of a crisis as hospitals are now routinely subject to ransomware attacks, much worse than DDoS attacks. But these attacks are not “acts of war.”
What makes the DDoS attacks in Ukraine different is their context; they are conducted in conjunction with the use of conventional weapons (in this case the bombing of civilian population centers) and intended to maximize the effect of the latter. Therefore, considered in context, they are “acts of war” and could be regarded as war crimes.
Careful thinking about cyber warfare will increasingly be necessary. For example, as I already noted, the United States is engaged in “offensive cyber operations” on behalf of Ukraine but has otherwise taken a firm stance of not becoming directly involved in the conflict. These offensive operations most likely include intelligence gathering and disrupting Russia’s own hacking efforts, but care should be taken that American hackers don’t engage in activities that could be interpreted by Russia as more direct American involvement in the war.
Earlier I noted that a key element of the Christian just-war tradition is the belief that war should only be fought with the aim of establishing a more just peace. Significantly, Pope Francis and his representatives have increasingly spoken in terms of seeking a “just peace” in Ukraine, which they have unabashedly admitted means the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukrainian territory. I could be wrong, but I cannot remember a previous occasion of Vatican peacemaking that so heavily emphasized the necessity of a “just peace.”
That being said, establishing a just peace in Ukraine will be more complex than simply restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, which itself is already immensely complex. In light of the incidents I have already mentioned, establishing a just peace would also require holding war criminals accountable through prosecution, compensation for damages to civilian infrastructure and the natural environment, and the reconstruction of civilian population centers and the restoration of damaged ecosystems. This is a tall order.
As scholars of post-war justice, including Winright and his colleague Mark Allman, have noted, there are serious hindrances to establishing a just peace. In some instances, the demands of a just peace may make any negotiated peace a non-starter. If, for example, a just peace requires the prosecution of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other high-ranking Russian political and military officials for war crimes, then Putin may decide to drag the war out rather than face justice. In other cases, there may simply be practical limitations to what can be accomplished in the aftermath of war. For example, Russia’s economy has already been decimated by sanctions, and so it may be difficult to force it to compensate Ukraine for civilian reconstruction and ecological restoration efforts.
Although a “just peace” may be the ideal, it may not be entirely achievable. As the legal scholars Carsten Stahn, Jens Iverson, and Jennifer Easterday state:
[Post-war justice] demands moderation, which derives from the need to end conflict in a sustainable way. This may require concessions, compromises, and a certain degree of renouncement, that is an openness by parties to conflict to accept not only what is “owed”, but what can be reasonably demanded.
From a Christian theological perspective, one might say that a just peace requires mercy as well as justice. The notion of a just peace is linked to the idea that, if justice is not established in the aftermath of conflict, there is a risk that lingering injustices will sow the seeds for future conflict, perpetuating a cycle of violence. This is certainly true, but this must be balanced by a consideration of the ways that the stringent pursuit of post-war justice can undermine peace, in the ways mentioned above.
Perhaps it is best to think of a just peace as something that is worked out through long-term efforts at peacemaking rather than once and for all through a diplomatic peace settlement; a peace settlement will, by necessity, leave many issues unaddressed and therefore leave wounds that can grow into outright conflict. Therefore, ongoing peacemaking efforts will be needed to heal those wounds. The tools of international law are valuable, but limited. A more comprehensive peacemaking approach, such as that embodied in the Christian tradition (even if not always fully recognized), is also necessary. Whether or not I am right about that, I think Christian ethicists and Vatican diplomats, among others, need to take heed of these tensions within the idea of a “just peace.”
Of Interest…
Last week, the Catholic Media Association announced the winners of the 2023 CMA Book Awards. The awards include several categories involving theology and ministry, and there are too many winners to mention here. The complete list of winners can be found here.
At the National Catholic Reporter, fellow theologian Daniel Castillo has an excellent essay on how “ecological conversion” and the rejection of “business as usual” will be needed to bring about ecological restoration and justice (not just in the context of the aftermath of war).
The National Catholic Reporter also reports on two listening sessions conducted by the US Catholic bishops’ synodal team with theologians representing six academic societies: the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, the Academy of Catholic Theology, the Black Catholic Theology Symposium, the Catholic Theological Society of America, the College Theological Society, and the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. The listening sessions were held on May 25 and June 6 and involved ten representatives from each society.
Coming Soon…
As I noted last week, we have just finished the conference season for Catholic academic theologians. As a newsletter focused, in part, on analyzing the field of academic theology, I will try to provide some reporting on the recent conferences even though I wasn’t able to attend personally. This may take the form of interviews or something else, so stay tuned!