Annex 1
"War would be illegal": 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.
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 CambridgeProf Christine Chinkin, Dr Gerry
Simpson, Deborah Cass: London School of EconomicsDr Matthew Craven:
School of Oriental and African Studies Prof Philippe Sands, Ralph
Wilde: University College LondonProf Pierre-Marie Dupuy: University
of Paris
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