International Law and the 2003 Iraq Invasion Revisited

Abstract

This paper was presented on April 30, 2013, at a Canadian-Australian seminar on the 2003 invasion of Iraq ten years later. It canvasses and reconsiders the two major justifications put forward by the US, UK, and Australia for military intervention in Iraq -- revived Security Council authorization and self-defense. It concludes by highlighting that states who had opposed military action in Iraq have been keen to ensure that it would not be legitimize with the passage of time, as some claim has happened with Kosovo. Many states are still critical given the uncertain future of Iraq and continue to assert the illegality of the invasion. Certainly states in the Security Council and elsewhere have become much more careful with the language, especially the language of consequential Resolutions. Indeed, they appear to exhibit and cautious unwillingness to approve seemingly necessary measures. The way in which the US, UK and Australia mounted their revival argument has, no doubt, hampered the ability to reach agreement in the Security Council on urgent humanitarian disasters like Syria and elsewhere. One hopes that in the future the long work on cooperative action in the Security Council will be preferred to plausible, but unpersuasive, legal interpretation.