'Legality is what the Foreign Office lawyers say it is' -- discuss...

Sam

Duh. Greenwood and Goldsmith are mates. Goldsmith "consulted" Greenwood and Irvine: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/war-advice-came-from-me-says-goldsmith-484966.html

Try doing some basic research, or less obvious dissembling.

In the Wilderness in America

Melanie,

As Charles Dickens said so long ago: "..the law is a ass." International Law is worse because it stips countries of their moral underpinnings for the law, namely Judeo-Christian tenets. Anyway, there was a basic moral imperative for stopping Saddam and that was his butchering of innocent men, women, and children and his threat to civilization. All of the reasons for not stopping him become ludicrous when weighed against that.

YA

Next time you notice a gang of cannibals, peacefully eating somebody in the quiet of their dark corner - don't try to interfere, that will be an assault, that will be against sovereigety of their corner, and a crime against indigenous culture, and that will be illegal.

Ferdinand

The adapted quote is from Clausewitz, not Machiavelli.

Barry

Is there really such a thing as an illegal or legal war?
Isn't it the invention of the modern UN liberal world?
Moral or immoral maybe but when did the law come in.

Biodegradable

Melanie,

That last link should be:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2768096/another-banana-moment.thtml

Gareth

According to the Pirate's Code (as described by Keira Knightley), the war was legal.
And the Pirate's Code is just as well defined and enforced as International Law.

Doug Shaw

Many say that the war was illegal but I have yet to it spelled out precisely what exact law had been broken. Perhaps the readership can enlighten us?

HarryG

The only problem with this article is that it appears to go some way towards accepting its opponents' premise, namely that there is such a thing as an illegal war. In a world of sovereign states, war is neither legal or illegal, but simply a sovereign act. (It may of course be, and often is, immoral, but that's a different question.)

At what point did the sovereign nations of the world agree to abrogate this sovereignty, thus creating the concept of an 'illeal war'? So far, I've heard no primary source quoted for this, merely the opinions of academic lawyers quoting other academic lawyers.

Of course it would be wonderful if the nations of the world really did agree to abolish war (provided democracy and universal human rights were also guaranteed) but I can't remember that they actually did so.

Could someone explain this to me please?

Ferdinand

@HarryG

The 1928 "Kellogg-Briand Pact" serves as the ground for declaring wars illegal. It was used by the prosecution at Nuremberg and is an inspiration for part of the UN charter.

Of course, the erosion of the old sovereign prerogative, for declarations of war, had started earlier when the allied powers of WW1 forced Germany to accept criminal responsibility for the war's outbreak.

Can you tell me what it would mean to abolish war, whilst guaranteeing human rights and democracy? Would enforcement of guarantees no longer be war because one doesn't call it such?

JohNW

I wouldn't go hanging your hat on the Kellogg-Briand Pact for anything. Only 15 nations signed it, and subsequent events showed that it didn't prevent or limit war between nations. By the start of WWII it was completely discredited.

The biggest problem was that it had no enforcement or sanctions mechanisms against violators. In addition, it failed to address the crucial issues of what constituted self-defence and when self-defence could legally be claimed. Because of these major flaws, K-B proved ultimately useless in achieving the idealistic goal of outlawing war.

Of couyrse, none of this will prevent the anti-Bush/Blair mob from prattling on and on, as they have been for the past six and a half years. Where were they when Clinton bombed the Serbs, I wonder? I don't recall any UN resolution for that action.

Mailman

The real problem here though isnt the War in Iraq...no...the real problem is the UN.

After 10 years of weapons inspections Iraq was still playing games...what Iraq got (the invasion) was completely avoidable but because Saddam thought himself invincible and thought he had the UN in his back pocket (food for oil, Germany, France, Russian economic interests etc).

But yes, it seems the enquiry has made its mind up already...or maybe thats the impression Im getting because the MSM is only covering one story, that the war was illegal?

Mailman

Ferdinand

@JohNW

I agree with you to an extent. There is of course a problem enforcing international law; suggesting it is no law at all. But, as I suggested, the criminalisation of Germany after WW1, Kellogg-Briand, Nurenberg and the UN Charter all point towards the outlawing of so called "aggressive war", in "international law". Indeed, Nurenberg is dependent on such wars being illegal.

I certainly don't agree with daft utopianism (such as declaring war illegal), but this is part of the reason I was against the Iraq misadventure.

Furthermore, whilst the bleating idealists might not have been against Clinton's and Blair's escapades in the Balkans, many on the right were. c.f. The anti-war declaration backed by many European rightists e.g Marco Tarchi, Alain de Benoist and Jean Raspail; "Chronicles" the major organ of US "paleo-conservatism" was also against the NATO operations. These parts of the right have been completely consistent from Kosovo through Iraq and Afghanistan.

Augustus

When Iraq was making its particlur infamous history by invading Kuwait, the UN Security Council also made history. It imposed upon Iraq the most far-reaching economic sanctions ever seen. These were designed to encourage Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. And there were repeated warnings that if he didn't withdraw he would face physical ejection from Kuwait. When, after six months, it became clear he wouldn't comply, The UN authorized the deployment of the force that had been specifically put together, principally by the US,
but incorporating contributions from some 30 other countries. That force, Operation Desert Storm, ejected Saddam in a matter of days. It did not remove him from governing Iraq because that was not its mandate. After the suspension of miltary activities, the Security Council drew up cease-fire resolutions, but no specific resolutions involving conclusion of the conflict were adopted, only a cease-fire. So technically UN-sanctioned enforcement action was never formally concluded, thus enabling the US and Britain to prepare what could be argued to be a re-start of military action
at any time Saddam remained in non-compliance with those Security Council resolutions. As the key such resolution was No. 687, and as Iraq never gave the cooperation required, never made honest declarations of its
weapons, sent inspectors down blind alleys, and most important of all, never cared how much sanctions hurt its 22 million people by allowing all its WMDs to be removed and accounted for, it in fact traded off its weapons programme, of whatever capacity,
and consisting of whatever type of mass destructive force, against the misery of so many millions. That was Saddam's stubborn and evil stance. That was his inexcusable crime. And for that he paid a just and deserved price.

jordan

I've personally found Douglas Murray's approach to the Iraq war in his book "neoconservatism: why we need it" to be a very compelling argument for the war... I find it funny that the state continually turns to the UN, as if the laws concering international relations hold any legitimacy in a world of state to state relations.

Richard

"The fact is, however, that international law is little more than a nebulous chimera; since it has no anchor in any legal jurisdiction but floats in a judicial vacuum one might say that international law is merely the continuation of politics by other means."

Thank you, Melanie! You've summmed up my feelings about the weakness of International Law as a field in one paragraph!
Superb!