War and peace: a juridical and philosophical approach

Abstract

The contemporary debate in the theory of international relations is marked by two perspectives: on the one hand the perspective of political realism that conceives of peace as an inaccessible ideal and war as a necessary means for the acquisition and maintenance of power; and on the other hand the perspective of normativism or idealism that thinks the end (telos) of international relations beyond the conflicts of interest and the struggle for power. The first perspective deals with international relations at the level of being (of what is), the second at the level of ought (normative level). In view of this scenario, our idea in this article is to approach the problem of war and peace from an interdisciplinary study through contributions from Kant's Public International Law and Philosophy. In a first moment we will analyze the paradox of the war, then the role of the Public International Law for the problematic of the peace, and finally the contributions of Kant for the normative redefinition of the international right from his republican project of the league of peace (foedus pacificum).