Legality of The Iraq War - Principal Legal Rationales

Principal Legal Rationales

The United Nations Charter is the foundation of modern international law. The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the US and its principal coalition allies in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which are therefore legally bound by its terms. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter generally bans the use of force by states except when carefully circumscribed conditions are met, stating:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

This rule was "enshrined in the United Nations Charter in 1945 for a good reason: to prevent states from using force as they felt so inclined", said Louise Doswald-Beck, Secretary-General International Commission of Jurists.

Therefore, in the absence of an armed attack against the US or the coalition members, any legal use of force, or any legal threat of the use of force, had to be supported by a UN security Council resolution authorizing member states to use force against Iraq.

The US and UK governments, along with others, stated (as is detailed in the first four paragraphs of the joint resolution) that the invasion was entirely legal because it was already authorized by existing United Nations Security Council resolutions and a resumption of previously temporarily suspended hostilities, and not a war of aggression as the US and UK were acting as agents for the defense of Kuwait in response to Iraq's 1990 invasion. Some International legal experts, including the International Commission of Jurists, the US-based National Lawyers' Guild, a group of 31 Canadian law professors, and the US-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy have found this legal rationale to be untenable, and are of the view that the invasion was not supported by UN resolution and was therefore illegal.

The ICC can find only individuals to have committed crimes, not governments. However, the unauthorized use of force or threat of use of force by a member state of the UN violates the UN Charter.