excerpts.. from TEARING UP THE RULES: The Illegality of Invading Iraq
March 2003; The Center for Economic and Social Rights Emergency Campaign on Iraq www.cesr.org/iraq


"Every country in the world is bound by principles of law developed over centuries to govern international relations. International law was significantly strengthened through the creation and universal acceptance of the U.N. Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Geneva Conventions over 50 years ago

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Under Article 1(1) of the UN Charter, the world organization's central purpose is "to bring about by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace."
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Similarly, Article 2(3) obligates member states to "settle their international disputes by peaceful means," while Article 2(4) provides that:
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.

It is beyond dispute that these provisions, and the Charter as a whole, impose a general prohibition on the use of force to resolve conflicts in international relations. The Security Council and General Assembly have consistently reaffirmed this legal principle.20 The prohibition against force is binding on all
states not only through the Charter but as a peremptory norm in customary international law, so fundamental that "no derogation is permitted." It is, in short, the cornerstone of the collective security system established by the U.N. to prevent any recurrence of the horrors of World War II.

Only two exceptions, specified in the Charter and supplemented by customary international law, permit the lawful use of force. First is the right of individual or collective self-defense in response to an armed attack, under Article 51. Second is the specific authorization of force by the Security Council
as a last resort to maintain international peace and security, under Chapter VII.
Preventive war is unequivocally illegal. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg rejected Germany's argument that it had been compelled to attack Norway and Denmark in selfdefense
to prevent a future Allied invasion. The Tribunal concluded that these attacks violated customary law limits on self-defense and instead constituted wars of aggression whose prohibition was demanded by the conscience of the world.4 As the Tribunal stated:
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

Nuremberg's condemnation of preventive war was incorporated into the U.N. Charter, affirmed by the General Assembly, and accepted by the Security Council.36 In 1978, the U.S. mobilized the Security Council to condemn Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia and overthrow of the violently repressive Khmer Rouge regime, terming it a breach of Charter and an act of aggression in violation of international law.

Similarly, in 1981, the Council unanimously condemned Israel's "preventive"
attack against an Iraqi nuclear plant as a "clear violation of the Charter of the UN and the norms of international conduct." A Council member explained the consensus:
The concept of preventive war, which for many years served as a justification for the abuses of powerful States, since it left to their discretion to define what
constituted a threat to them, was definitively abolished by the Charter of the U.N.
The German argument in favor of preventive war was judged and condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal, and German leaders held individually accountable as war criminals. Any return to this doctrine by powerful states such as the U.S. and U.K. would undermine world public order, and in the process encourage states and non-state actors alike to launch unilateral acts of aggression unconstrained by longstanding principles of international law.
humanitarian intervention.
Source: CESR Report, "Unsanctioned Suffering:
Human Rights Violations Under Sanctions (May
1996), www.cesr/iraq.