Defending Imminence: From Battered Women to Iraq

This Article claims that the significance of the imminence requirement is independent of the needs of the defender. Self-defense is not merely self preferential acting. Rather, self-defense is best understood as a limited right to respond to aggression. Imminence serves as the actus reus for aggression, separating those threats that we may properly defend against from mere inchoate and potential threats. Thus, when one seeks to pull at the thread of imminence, the fabric of self-defense itself unravels.