Please identify specific international law violated by war for regime chg

Someone has called me out re: a recent letter to the editor, penned by me, in which I call the war in Iraq a violation of international law (insofar as it was waged for regime change). I have been asked to point to a specific international law violated by the Iraq war. Can anyone help? I felt justified making the charge at the time, based on the British queasiness about war for regime change as identified in the DSM, but again, my questioner would like me to point to a specific piece of legislation. Thanks!

I've never seen a RW wingnut point to anything except a talk show hosts transcript.

Anyway, I'd start with the UN Charter and/or Geneva Conventions. Here's a pretty good article.

http://www.cdi.org/news/law/preemptive-war.cfm

UN Resolution or Not, This War Violates International Law
Is the War Itself a Violation of International Law? ... full-scale capitulation
and "regime change" would have stopped the United States from going to war. ...
www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0313-NoWar.html

Use a research engine: "International Law regime change"

<http://www.genevaconventions.org/>

Name withheld of course.

http://www.thefourreasons.org/iraqinvasion.html

in general "preemptive war" is illegal

google "preemptive war and "illegal"

also look into the Treaty of Westphalia

the resolution they used allowed them to make Saddam comply , and if the admin had intel it had amassed WMD's which posed an imminent threat that would allow for the intervention ...but only , according to the UN charter , in coordination with the sec. council ... that councel is capable of seeing a genocide and standing by idly , because of the whatyamacallit ...whoring to national interests ....thereby on it's own forgoing the UN charter .Yet if the US would have had that information of imminent threat and gone trough the process of proving it to the sec. council it would have been left to doubt if the permition for invasion would be given,but the moral justification would have left the precedent unharmed .Yet the US did not posses this inteligence , they had some stories written by tom clancy , i presume , and that was it .It's great to show , trucks and other neat little fear inducing trickery on CNN , but what Mr Powell pulled was a disgrace to any nation .The evidence was as ficticious and unprecise as the war was planned .So we can safely pressume they had intent to invade and only put on a show , in utter contempt for the sec counc.Doing so as the most powerfull nation in the world , sets precedent , you can't get away putting on a show , and not expect china for example to put a stop to a show of it's thrustworthy supplier zimbabwe .....that would be plain ole hipocracy ...which brings me full circle , the true crime is that hypocracy was now openly the mean and standard for conduct as a nation in the UN .But if you have to give the plain ole simple fox news answer , with few syllables , it's the breaking of the UN charter .every nation has to avert war if the threat can be solved otherwise ...i'm parafrasing ...

to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest,....

this is the part in the introduction that states they should use the methods stated in the charter , there are more violations as you go along

Off course since the start of the war , a whole new wave of violations has been commited , no longer against the international community's law , but the law of human rights ....a grail which dooms any nation not abiding by it , trough the virtue of history ...that is if rupert murdoch doesn't get to write it .

most of the above you knew , yet i wrote it under the clever disguise of self-clarification and then pushed post .. :D

have fun

United States Constitution

Article VI Clause II

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

(this clause makes treaties ratified by the Senate binding parts of our Constitution--breaking treaty obligations is a violation of the Presidential oath of office to uphold the laws and Constitution. This is impeachment grounds in itself. Now attend to these basic provisions of the UN Charter, a treaty of international law ratified by the US Senate)

Charter of the United Nations

Signed June 26, 1945; came into force October 24, 1945
Article 2 paragraph 3

All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
Article 2 paragraph 4

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.
Article 51

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
---------------------------------------------------------
Bush was not acting in the self-defense of the United States--or in the collective defense of any other country, nor in any case with the authorization of the UN Security Council when he invaded Iraq. What he did is an open and shut case of international aggression under the terms of the UN Charter.

Is there international legal precedent for enforcing these conventions? Indeed there is, and WE set it. Under the Nuremburg Charter for the International Military Tribunal following the Second World War the following definitions appear as warcrimes.
ARTICLE 6
...'
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:

(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,14 or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution
of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.

ARTICLE 7

The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment.
----------------------
Conspiracy to commit an illegal act of war like that which surrounds the whole Rovegate issue along with the central charge of initiating an invasion of Iraq not sanctioned by the UN Security Council or in self-defense is what George W. Bush would be charged with, if we were to treat him to the same standards of international justice Slobodan Milosovic and Hermann Goering were shown. So either there's a different law for the United States and its rulers than for everyone else or Bush is an as yet unindicted warcriminal.

First and Second articles of the Nuremberg indictments... plain and simple

The indictment against them contained four points:

1. Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression
3. War-Crimes
4. Crimes against humanity

For one thing there is the United Nations Charter

CHAPTER VII
ACTION WITH RESPECT TO THREATS TO THE PEACE, BREACHES OF THE PEACE, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION
Article 39
The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 40
In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.

Article 41
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm


The United Nations did not approve the war in Iraq, although Bush and Blair tried desperately to persuade it to do so.

It is a basic principle of English Common Law that the intentional taking life of another to preserve your own is a crime, unless the life is taken in self-defense. Self-defense requires, at a minimum, an imminent threat of death of sever bodily harm to ones self or another.

The DSMs are significant because they establish that in the eyes of the British the threat that Saddam posed to the UK and/or the US was not imminent enough to justify war. The DSMs also establish that the British did not believe that the situation in Iraq was an emergency that justified war. They urged Bush to obtain authorization from the UN to go into Iraq, but, based on the best evidence they could present, all they ever really got was a resolution to send the UN inspectors back into Iraq and decide whether war was justified based on the inspectors' report. Hans Blix reported to the UN that Saddam was reluctantly cooperating with the inspectors, but that the cooperation was not yielding as much information as desired.

He said:

One can hardly avoid the impression that, after a period of somewhat reluctant cooperation, there has been an acceleration of initiatives from the Iraqi side since the end of January.

This is welcome, but the value of these measures must be soberly judged by how many question marks they actually succeed in straightening out. This is not yet clear.


Against this background, the question is now asked whether Iraq has cooperated “immediately, unconditionally and actively” with UNMOVIC, as required under paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002). The answers can be seen from the factual descriptions I have provided. However, if more direct answers are desired, I would say the following:

The Iraqi side has tried on occasion to attach conditions, as it did regarding helicopters and U-2 planes. Iraq has not, however, so far persisted in these or other conditions for the exercise of any of our inspection rights. If it did, we would report it.
It is obvious that, while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as “active”, or even “proactive”, these initiatives 3-4 months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute “immediate” cooperation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance. They are nevertheless welcome and UNMOVIC is responding to them in the hope of solving presently unresolved disarmament issues."

Blix was later interviewed by NPR:

, March 16, 2004 · The leaders of the United States and Britain failed to exercise "critical judgment" in going to war against Iraq a year ago despite the lack of hard evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, says Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.

"If you sentence someone to death or you sentence someone to war, you'd better have some evidence," Blix tells NPR's Bob Edwards. "And we didn't feel there was evidence..."

Blix, whose new book is called Disarming Iraq, says he became doubtful about the existence of Iraqi WMD in January 2003. He says U.N. inspectors visited locations in Iraq that intelligence had indicated "as places where there would be weapons. And in none of these cases did we find any weapons."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1767468


UN Resolution 141

http://wikisource.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441