With governments often incentivized to deny that conflict in their countries amount to war and with the contrasting situation of the United States claiming that it is in a global war against those who have committed what many critics see as simply criminal acts, there is a need for the international legal community to more precisely define the actual nature of war so as to further clarify questions with regard to the law of war, law on resort to war, and international human rights. In 2005 the International Law Association's Executive Council tasked its Committee on the Use of Force with reporting on the definition of war in international law. O'Connell (U. of Notre Dame) presents the results of the deliberations that followed, including background papers addressing associated issues from the disciplinary perspectives of international law, political science, military history, journalism, ethics, and peace research, as well as the various reports issues by the Committee in pursuit of its mandate. Martinus Nijhoff is an imprint of Brill. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)