Oxford Institute for

Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict

This research programme ran from 2008-2013 and the following page is an archived resource. Although the programme no longer receives funding from the Oxford Martin School, former members of the team are active in other programmes.

Project Description

We are reassessing how the world governs armed conflict, aiming to determine how it can be better managed, regulated, reduced, and ultimately whether it can be eliminated.

In an age of weapons with the potential to destroy all life on earth, going to war is becoming increasingly hard to justify. The 20th century was by far the bloodiest in human history and we must reconsider the ways we manage conflict.

ELAC is the first research institute in the world to unite leading experts in international law, moral philosophy and political science in a major study of conflict.

We aim to strengthen law, norms and institutions to restrain, regulate and prevent armed conflict. ELAC seeks to develop a more sophisticated framework of rules and stronger forms of international authority relating to armed conflict. Research addresses all aspects of armed conflict, including the recourse to war, the conduct of war, and post-conflict governance, transition and reconstruction.