Abstract
This final chapter is in two parts. This chapter situates Britain’s war powers in the context of the war powers of other European states, in particular Germany and France. The second and final part of the chapter concludes the work. The work will argue that the convention needs to be put on a far more formal basis, for example statutory. However, the failure to even retrospectively criticise the government’s refusal to recall Parliament in April 2018 suggests a democratic deficit at the heart of the British polity. Legislative control is only as good as the political will of the legislature. The British Parliament has to make a decision to play its constitutional role as the sovereign power in the state, a sovereign power that represents and acts on behalf of the citizens of the state.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Bock, P. (2018, April 17). Macron’s Bid to Look Strong on Syria Could Weaken Him in France. The Guardian. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/17/france-intervention-syria-macron-french-president-strikes-tony-blair-iraq.
Borger, J. (2012, September 18). Germany Slowly Comes to Terms with Sending Its Armed Forces Abroad. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/18/germany-military-modernise-foreign-intervention.
Brazier, R. (1999). Constitutional Reform (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Democratic Audit UK. (2013). Parliament Has Relatively Weak War Powers Compared to Legislatures in Other Democracies. Available from http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/81420/1/democraticaudit.com-Parliament%20has%20relatively%20weak%20war%20powers%20compared%20to%20legislatures%20in%20other%20democracies.pdf.
Deutsche Welle. (2010, December 28). The Balkan Dilemma, Germany Returns to Military Actin. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-mulls-joining-us-led-airstrikes-in-syria-report/a-45424607.
Deutsche Welle. (2017, September 10). Germany Mulls Joining US-Led Airstrikes in Syria-Report. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-mulls-joining-us-led-airstrikes-in-syria-report/a-45424607.
Dieterich, S., Hummel, H., & Marschall, S. (2010). Parliamentary War Powers: A Survey of 25 European Parliaments, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (Occasional Paper No. 21). Available from http://www.css.ethz.ch/en/services/digital-library/publications/publication.html/122963.
Fikfak, V., & Hooper, H. (2018). Whither the War Powers Convention? What Next for Parliamentary Control of Armed Conflict After Syria. UK Constitutional Law Association. https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2018/04/20/veronika-fikfak-and-hayley-j-hooper-whither-the-war-powers-convention-what-next-for-parliamentary-control-of-armed-conflict-after-syria/.
HC Deb. (2018, April 17). Vol 639, Col 192–246. Available from https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-04-17/debates/EF164C0A-E0F5-40B6-A718-DD8693A2490C/MilitaryActionOverseasParliamentaryApproval.
House of Commons. (2006). Foreign Affairs Committee, Sixth Report.
ICISS. (2001). The Responsibility to Protect—Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.
Intelligence and Security Committee. (2018). Report on Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition. Available from http://isc.independent.gov.uk/committee-reports/special-reports.
Jenkins, D. (2007). Constitutional Reform Goes to War: Some Lessons from the United States. Public Law, 258–279.
Mello, P., & Peters, D. (2018). Parliaments in Security Policy: Involvement, Politicisation, and Influence. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20(1), 3–18.
Mills, C. (2018). Parliamentary Approval for Military Action (Commons Briefing Paper 7166). House of Commons Library.
Ostermann, F. (2017). France’s Reluctant Parliamentarisation of Military Deployments: The 2008 Constitutional Reform in Practice. West European Politics, 40(2), 101–118.
Raunio, T., & Wagner, W. (2017). Towards Parliamentarisation of Foreign and Security Policy? West European Politics, 40(1), 1–19.
Reuters. (2018). Germany Says in Talks About Possible Military Role in Syria.
Rogers, P. (2013). Security by “Remote Control”: Can It Work? RUSI Journal, 158(3), 14–20.
Stein, A. (2018). Paramilitary Activity: The Unintended Consequences of America’s Undeclared War Against Assad. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2018/12/paramilitary-activity-the-unintended-consequences-of-americas-undeclared-war-against-assad/.
Strong, J. (2014). Why Parliament Now Decides on War: Tracing the Growth of the Parliamentary Prerogative Through Syria, Libya an Iraq. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17(4), 1–19.
Strong, J. (2018). The War Powers of the British Parliament: What Has Been Established and What Remains Unclear. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20, 19–34.
Wagner, W. (2017). The Bundestag as a Champion of Parliamentary Control of Military Missions. Security and Peace, 35(2), 60–65.
Wagner, W., Herranz-Surrallés, A., Kaarbo, J., & Ostermann, F. (2017). The Party Politics of Legislative–Executive Relations in Security and Defence Policy. West European Politics, 40(1), 20–41.
Younge, G., & Henley, J. (2003, February 11). Wimps, Weasels and Monkeys—The US Media View of Perfidious Frances. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/11/pressandpublishing.usa.
Ziegler, K. (2017). ‘AWACS I (Ger)’. In R. Grote, R. Wolfrum, & F. Lachenmann (Eds.), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (MPECCoL).
Ziegler, K. (2019). The Use of Military Force by the United Kingdom, the Evolution of Accountability. In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McCormack, T. (2019). British War Powers in Context and Conclusion. In: Britain’s War Powers. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13682-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13682-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-13681-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-13682-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)