subject: War And Allied Perils [print this page] Later in some other of my article riot and terrorism will probably be considered separately, but in this section consideration is given to the way the courts have defined the various phrases and terms used in typical war exclusion clauses. There is rarely any difficulty in establishing that a formally declared war has taken place. Indeed, even without a formal declaration of war, the English courts have recognised that a war can occur.
Far greater problems of definition arise in respect of the "lesser" forms of war such as civil war and the various intermediate stages. It is rare that a civil war suddenly occurs. It is a gradual process which may develop over a period of months or even years. Tribal skirmishes may develop into guerrilla war and then to civil war. It is not clear at English law as to whether guerrilla war will be caught by a typical London market war exclusion. In a US case, Pan American World Airways Inc. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. [1975] 1 Lloyd's Rep 77, the US Court of Appeal held that although war can exist between quasi-sovereign entities and without formal declaration, a guerrilla war does not fall into the category of war until one guerrilla group has some incidence of sovereignty.
It is possible to isolate the various elements common to most war exclusion clauses but it is probably misleading to consider war exclusions as containing differing types of violent peril. They overlap to such a degree that it is more realistic to consider the clause as intending to cover violent and belligerent actions on a "sliding scale". To understand the interaction, it is helpful to consider the elements in the context of an example and one can do no better than consider in detail the events in the Lebanon in the Spinneys Case
