International Conflict and War ♦ Article 65 Va. J. Int’l L. 237 (2025)

War’s Rustic Code of Honor

JENS DAVID OHLIN

With armed conflict raging all around, international law generally, and the law of war specifically, has come under renewed scrutiny. Do we live in a rules-based international order, and does law regulate and constrain battlefield behavior? Previous explorations of this controversy have used empirical analysis or jurisprudential investigations. But an illuminating answer to this question may come from an unlikely source—the world of opera. Drawing inspiration from the Italian opera Cavalleria Rusticana, a melodrama about a rural village gripped by seduction, betrayal, and a fatal duel, this Article argues that war is governed by a rustic code of honor, based on norms that are often described as chivalry. The relationship between the ancient tradition of chivalry and the modern Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) is not new, but this Article’s novel contribution hangs not on invoking the concept of chivalry, but rather on highlighting its “rustic” qualities. This Article explores the variety of meanings that rusticity can have and shows that they provide a compelling framework for identifying not just the shortcomings of the law of war as an allegedly primitive legal system, but also the great virtues of the law of war as a robust system of normative regulation.