Was The Iraq War Legal, Or Illegal, Under International Law?
"Advantage is a better soldier than rashness." -Montjoy in Wm. Shakespeare's Henry V, 3.6.120
Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.
09/17/04 "ICH"
-- During a BBC radio interview on Wednesday, UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan created a controversy by reiterating his long-held position that
the Iraq War was illegal because it breached the United Nations
Charter.
[1] On Thursday, the imperial leaders of the "Coalition of the Willing"
retaliated by vehemently arguing that their Iraq War was, to the
contrary, legal. [2]
Obviously, this dispute
raises a legal question: "Whose opinion is correct, and whose is
incorrect?" Additionally, we should be asking ourselves: "Who decides?
(i.e., 'Whose jurisprudential opinion shall be dispositive for purposes
of resolving this dispute?')"
It seems eminently reasonable -- even for the disputants -- to conclude
that the optimal source of guidance on this question of international
law would have to be the world's foremost experts in the field of
international law. Hence, the UN's chief and the coalition's leaders
need to know how the world's top international law experts would
resolve their jurisprudential dispute. And we, the people, need to know
who's right and who's wrong here.
Realistically, one cannot seriously expect the disputants -- much less
their national electorates -- to wade through numerous legal documents,
most of which contain rigorous and not-occasionally tedious reasoning,
to find the correct answer. Thus, it seems prudent to proceed directly
to the world's most authoritative answer to our pressing question du
jour: "Was the Iraq War legal, or illegal, under international law?"
And The World's Most Authoritative Answer Is ... Among the world's
foremost experts in the field of international law, the overwhelming
jurisprudential consensus is that the Anglo-American invasion,
conquest, and occupation of Iraq constitute three phases of one illegal
war of aggression. [3]
Moreover, these experts in the international law of war deem both
preventive wars and preemptive strikes to be euphemistic subcategories
of outlawed wars of aggression.
And the experts' answer would hold true regardless of whether their
governing legal authority was: (A) the UN Security Council Resolutions
that were passed to implement the conflict-resolution provisions of the
UN Charter; or (B) prior treaties and juridical holdings which have
long since become general international law. [4
Three Conclusions It is the overwhelming consensus of the world's
foremost international law experts that: (1) UN Secretary General
Annan's opinion is correct (i.e., true) because the Iraq War was,
indeed, illegal; and
(2) the opinion of the
"Coalition of the Willing's" leaders is incorrect (i.e., false) because
their Iraq War was NOT legal.
(3) Therefore, Americans must break free of the neocons'
self-delusional groupthink mentality by learning to differentiate
between fact and truth, which are all-too-easily confused. For
instance, it's an undeniable fact that Messrs. Bush and Cheney have
been arguing along the campaign trail that "The Iraq War was legal!"
Nevertheless, the mere fact that they've been vehemently arguing that
point certainly does NOT make it true! Their argument is flawed by a
logical fallacy called an ipse dixit (i.e., "something asserted but not
proved"). As we've already seen, their argument is just plain WRONG AS
A MATTER OF LAW! Therefore, Messrs. Bush and Cheney are making a false
argument (i.e., deceptively asserting something that is untrue).
The Bottom Line Americans should reject the temptation to vote for
Messrs. Bush and Cheney, because: (1) both men were advised beforehand
that their decision to commence the invasion of Iraq would be blatantly
illegal under international law; (2) they invaded nonetheless, and now
they're cynically attempting to mislead the public again by falsely
arguing that "The Iraq War was legal!"; (3) however, their argument is
legally-meritless nonsense -- the current equivalent of their earlier
false argument that torture is a legal method for the US military's
interrogation of prisoners; (4) they've repeatedly demonstrated their
disdain for universal human rights and democratic governance under the
rule of law; and
(5) the 21st-century world isn't Tombstone's OK Corral and they
certainly aren't Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday -- however much they might
wish us to believe that they are! [6]
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[1] Read this 9-16-04 PI article by clicking on these blue words:
http://www.politinfo.com/articles/article_2004_09_16_4815.html
"UN Says Nothing New In Annan's 'Illegal War' Comment". Also see this
9-17-04 GU article, which contends that UN Secretary General Annan's
statement wasn't his long-held opinion, but is new and belated: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1306642,00.html
"The War Was Illegal"
[2] Read this 9-17-04 JO article by clicking on these blue words:
http://snipurl.com/94y0 "Bush Joins Coalition Leaders In Defending War Against Iraq"
[3] Read the 9-15-04 ES's indispensable analysis by clicking on these blue words:
http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/bbiraqwar.htm#TOP
Legality of the Iraq War. If the click-on doesn't link, paste this URL into your webserver:
http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/bbiraqwar.htm
[Skeptical readers should not read to confirm their biases, but instead
should set their biases aside until they've finished reading all of the
legal arguments on this website, which will take awhile.]
[4] There seems to be one relevant omission from the ES website.
General international law could have been be cited as an alternative
basis for proving the Iraq War's illegality by analyzing these
authoritative precedents: (A) the Kellogg-Briand Pact of Paris (1928);
and (B) the Charters, Principles, Indictments, and Holdings from the
International Military Tribunals at Nüremberg and Tokyo (1945-48).
[5] Generally speaking, legal opinions offered by government attorneys
are NOT considered to be authoritative because: (a) they're drafted in
the adversarial mode of an advocate, often under self-interested
political pressure from the executive branch; (b) even at its best,
their reasoning tends toward casuistry, reflecting Cicero's injudicious
maxim,"salus populi suprema lex esto" (De Legibus, III, 3.8: "Let the
welfare of the people be the supreme law!" Or the Bushites' tortuous
translation thereof: "We feel that we can legally torture our prisoners
now if it might save our people later!"); and (c) for an apt example,
see the history of the Third Reich's attorneys Hans Frank and Wilhelm
Frick, whose pre-war legal advice to Reichsführer Hitler was that
Germany could use the pretext of an imminent threat to "preemptively"
invade Poland, for which war crime they were both tried, sentenced, and
hanged to death by the International Military Tribunal at Nüremberg.
Note bene, Attorney General Ashcroft and Bush administration "torture
memo" attorneys Bybee, Chertoff, Gonzales, Haynes and Woo!
[6] Read Douglas Jehl's 9-16-4 CD/SPI article by clicking on these blue words:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0916-02.htm
"CIA Analysis Holds Bleak Vision For Iraq's Future". Also see the 9-16-04 Dreyfuss Report column:
http://tompaine.com/archives/the_dreyfuss_report.php
"Annan For President"
Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., is the Executive Director of
the American Center for InternationalLaw ("ACIL"). <EvPeters8@aol.com>
