Introduction

Abstract

Abstract The Introduction to this volume elucidates our novel concept of individualization and analyses the tensions it creates for actors engaged in contemporary armed conflict. We define individualization as a process in which individuals (both as agents and as subjects) increase in importance compared with collective entities for the purposes of explaining and normatively assessing the causes, conduct, and consequences of war, and outline three ways—or ‘domains’—in which individuals are implicated in armed conflict: (1) as subject to violence but deserving of protection (given their individual right to life); (2) as liable to harm because of their responsibility for attacks on or threats posed to others; and (3) as agents who can be held accountable for the perpetration of crimes committed in the course of war. We then discuss the normative and practical challenges created by the individualization of war, as well as tensions that cut across the three domains. The following sections outline a set of strategies that actors have used (and could use) to resolve or manage these tensions, including efforts to reconcile seemingly competing imperatives and various forms of institutional adaptation, as well as the different ways in which individualization is being contested in contemporary contexts of armed conflict. We conclude by providing an overview of the subsequent chapters, in which international lawyers, philosophers, and political scientists further engage with the potential and limitations of the individualization of war.