Daniel Messelken

Changing faces of war and war-like situations have led in recent years to new forms of military deployment. They range from the so called "war on terrorism" with e.g Operation Enduring Freedom or humanitarian interventions (e.g. Kosovo 1999) to deployments within disaster relief missions as lately in Haiti. These pose not only moral, legal, and organizational challenges to states and the international community but also put individual soldiers and military (medical) personnel in situations that their classical formation does not prepare them for. For they face (i) situations not sufficiently covered/ regulated by international humanitarian (IHL) law and/or (ii) tasks that are not within the range of the "classical soldier". These changing needs require new forms of education in the military and highlight the role of ethical education as many of the dilemmas cannot be resolved by sole reference to the IHL. In addition to a solid knowledge of the law of armed conflict (LOAC), military personnel should therefore acquire fundamental skills of ethical reasoning in dilemma situations. Our article aims at (i) outlining the goals of a military medical ethics education that responds to these needs and the practical challenges of present-day military deployment and (ii) present how the ICMM tries to integrate these goals in its educational program.

Battlefield euthanasia, the purposeful killing of wounded soldiers (or even civi- lians) in order to hasten their foreseeable death, has been an issue in military medicine and in soldiers’ moral codes at all times. During conflicts since anti- quity, there have been severely wounded who would not die immediately but whose fate seemed clear, nevertheless. But can it ever be morally justified to kill those wounded out of mercy in order to end their suffering? Can death ever be the better option? And if so, what conditions have to be fulfilled? This paper investigates some of the moral aspects of battlefield euthanasia. Analogies to physician-assisted suicide in civil settings will be drawn and contrasted with the additional aspects that the military environment adds to the problem.

Der Einfluss der Lehre vom gerechten Krieg bzw. der Idee des gerechten Friedens auf den Umgang mit heutigen Konflikten lässt sich besonders gut anhand der so genannten „humanitären Interventionen“ und dem aus dieser Praxis entwickelten neuen Ansatz der „Responsibility to Protect“ (RtoP/ R2P) bzw. Schutzverantwortung zeigen. Bei der Be- gründung als humanitär erachteter Interventionen seit den 1990er Jahren wurde und wird auf die Kriterien des gerechten Krieges bzw. gerechten Friedens zurückgegriffen. Nachfolgend spielten diese auch bei der Formulierung des Prinzips der Schutzverantwor- tung eine wichtige Rolle und sind so erneut für die Ausbildung völkerrechtlicher Normen herangezogen worden. Im Folgenden soll zunächst kurz das Kernproblem humanitär begründeter Interventionen skizziert werden und in einem zweiten Schritt dann gezeigt werden, wie die Konzepte von gerechtem Krieg und gerechtem Frieden in der Denkweise und den Prinzipien der Schutzverantwortung verankert sind.

This paper examines the question whether physicians are obligated by their professional ethos to defend a pacifist position. The question is a more concrete and applied formulation of the general thesis that there are what I will call “pacifist professions”: professions whose ethos requires their members to act in a pacifist way. Since the present paper is rather one in applied philosophy than a theoretical one about the foundation of pacifism, it will concentrate on the practical issue of whether and how physicians can execute their profession in or during war. Theoretical questions on the nature and extent of pacifism will be considered only to the extent necessary to treat the main issue. The introductory section will give a short overview of some histori- cal aspects of physicians’ participation in war and show the relevance of the issue with recent examples. The remainder of this section will thus serve to set the stage and to outline the connections between the medical profession and questions of war and peace. The paper will then be divided into three other main parts: the first part will be devoted to defining in a general manner so-called “professional pacifism”. The second part will investigate whether and to what extent the medical profession can be classified as a pacifist profession, and the third part will look at the consequences of such a classification.