The Guardian: War would be illegal

posted by admin on Friday March 07, @07:41AM

Friday March 7, 2003
The Guardian

We are teachers of international law. On the basis of the information publicly available, there is no justification under international law for the use of military force against Iraq. The UN charter outlaws the use of force with only two exceptions: individual or collective self-defence in response to an armed attack and action authorised by the security council as a collective response to a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. There are currently no grounds for a claim to use such force in self-defence. The doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence against an attack that might arise at some hypothetical future time has no basis in international law. Neither security council resolution 1441 nor any prior resolution authorises the proposed use of force in the present circumstances.

Before military action can lawfully be undertaken against Iraq, the security council must have indicated its clearly expressed assent. It has not yet done so. A vetoed resolution could provide no such assent. The prime minister's assertion that in certain circumstances a veto becomes "unreasonable" and may be disregarded has no basis in international law. The UK has used its security council veto on 32 occasions since 1945. Any attempt to disregard these votes on the ground that they were "unreasonable" would have been deplored as an unacceptable infringement of the UK's right to exercise a veto under UN charter article 27.

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A decision to undertake military action in Iraq without proper security council authorisation will seriously undermine the international rule of law. Of course, even with that authorisation, serious questions would remain. A lawful war is not necessarily a just, prudent or humanitarian war.

Prof Ulf Bernitz, Dr Nicolas Espejo-Yaksic, Agnes Hurwitz, Prof Vaughan Lowe, Dr Ben Saul, Dr Katja Ziegler

University of Oxford

Prof James Crawford, Dr Susan Marks, Dr Roger O'Keefe

University of Cambridge

Prof Christine Chinkin, Dr Gerry Simpson, Deborah Cass

London School of Economics

Dr Matthew Craven

School of Oriental and African Studies

Prof Philippe Sands, Ralph Wilde

University College London

Prof Pierre-Marie Dupuy

University of Paris

· Simon Tisdall (Comment, GuardianUnlimited, March 5) states that: "Either George Bush is being deliberately duplicitous on the Palestinian question or he is very badly informed." The Bush administration sees the key to defeating world terrorism and that of solving the Middle East conflict as essentially being linked: once tyrannical regimes have been removed, democracies can flourish in their place, and these democracies can put their own houses in order rather than attacking their neighbours.

Arafat and Saddam are two examples where regime change is required. By setting this in motion, the root cause of the Middle East problem - the Arabs rejection of Israel's existence - can finally be addressed. It can be addressed by a new generation of Arab leaders who will use their huge financial resources to put their own societies in order rather than diverting internal dissent by attacking their enemies. It is precisely this destruction of hostile regimes policy which led to the recent emergence of flourishing democracies in eastern Europe and, a generation before, to the redefinition of Japanese society from a militaristic one to a peaceful one.

Ian Solomon
Jerusalem

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