Lecture | The War To End All Wars?

Wednesday 15th October
6.30pm-8.00pm

Prof Sir Hew Strachan will discuss why the laws of war have failed to prevent war since 1945.  The 80^th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War is a moment to reflect on the extent to which the phrase so often linked to the First World War, “The War to end all Wars”, can legitimately be attached to the year 1945, as the world began again to try to rebuild global peace out of devastating conflict.  The UN Charter abolished inter-state war except in cases of self-defence. The Nuremberg trials punished war crimes including that of waging aggressive war, setting a precedent to which international lawyers still refer.  We talk about upholding a rules-based order but the idea that war can be prevented or managed by a set of rules looks like a sad joke in the context of today’s conflicts, civil wars and terrorist threats. Why has international law failed to deliver?  And can we do anything about it?

Sir Hew Strachan FRSE, Hon D. Univ (Paisley) was Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford until 31 March 2015 and is now Wardlaw Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His recent books include The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms (2001), The First World War: an illustrated history (2003; related to a multi-part television series and translated into many languages), Clausewitz’s On War: a Biography (2007), and The Direction of War (2013). He is the editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (revised edition, 2014), and a clutch of volumes arising from his Directorship of the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme

6.30pm Drinks Reception (Drink included in ticket price), 7.00pm Lecture Commences

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