Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 18. september 2004 / Timeline September 18, 2004
Version 3.517. September 2004, 19. September 2004
09/18/2004
Was The Iraq War Legal, Or Illegal, Under International
Law?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article6917.htm
By: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.
"Advantage is a better soldier than rashness." -Montjoy in Wm.
Shakespeare's Henry V, 3.6.120
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]
Readers who need to "trust but verify" (i.e., to corroborate) for
themselves that the experts' overwhelming opinion is exactly as
stated above should read a document entitled "15 January 2003."
(Find it by scrolling down approximately one-fourth of the way,
after you've clicked onto this ES website:
http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/bbiraqwar.htm "The Legality Of The
Iraq War" .) Why?
That document was drafted and signed by the world's foremost
international law experts -- the prestigious International
Commission of International Law Jurists -- to provide ultimate
proof of their authoritative opinion concerning the legal status of
war against Iraq. Furthermore, this large body of eminent
international law experts explicitly stated that they'd drafted
their legal document in order to advise Messrs. Bush and Blair
prior to the invasion: (1) that it would be blatantly illegal under
international law for the Anglo-American belligerents to invade
Iraq; and (2) that their joint decision as Commanders-in-Chief to
commence hostilities would constitute prosecutable war crimes.
Skeptical readers who don't regard this highly-authoritative
conclusion as an adequate answer are invited to undertake the legal
reasoning for themselves at the ES website. Note that every
applicable Article in the UN Charter, and every relevant UN
Security Council Resolution, is cited and analyzed therein. And
readers who continue to scroll down the ES website will find a
succession of articles which summarize the opinions of noteworthy
individual experts on international law. These, too, strongly
confirm that the invasion of Iraq constituted an illegal war of
aggression under international law. [5]
Finally, ambitious readers will learn what non-credible source was
most responsible for propagating the fictitious pre-war claim that
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on
the WTC and the Pentagon (hint: yet another uncredentialed neocon
think-tanker from the thoroughly-discredited American Enterprise
Institute).
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]
ENDNOTES
[1] Read this 9-16-04 PI article:
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: http://snipurl.com/94y0 "Bush
Joins Coalition Leaders In Defending War Against Iraq"
[3] Read the 9-15-04 ES's indispensable analysis:
http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/bbiraqwar.htm#TOP Legality of the
Iraq War. or 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:
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 International Law ("ACIL").
©2004EAPIII
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