Top judge: US and UK acted as
'vigilantes' in Iraq invasion
Former
senior law lord condemns 'serious violation of international
law'
The Guardian, November 18, 2008
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See Article I.1 Promoting
an Illegal War of Aggression
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A British
soldier patrols the northern suburbs of the
southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Source: Dave Clark,
AFP/Getty images |
One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures
last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion
of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international
law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like
a "world vigilante".
Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring
as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney
general's defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally
flawed.
Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith's advice that
the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: "It
was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a
manner justifying resort to force and there were no
strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that
it had." Adding his weight to the body of international
legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said
that to argue, as the British government had done,
that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide
that Iraq had broken UN resolutions "passes belief".
Governments were bound by international law as much
as by their domestic laws, he said. "The current
ministerial code," he added "binding on
British ministers, requires them as an overarching
duty to 'comply with the law, including international
law and treaty obligations'."
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continue
to press for an independent inquiry into the circumstances
around the invasion. The government says an inquiry
would be harmful while British troops are in Iraq.
Ministers say most of the remaining 4,000 will leave
by mid-2009.
Addressing the British Institute of International
and Comparative Law last night, Bingham said: "If
I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the
UK, and some other states was unauthorised by the
security council there was, of course, a serious violation
of international law and the rule of law.
"For the effect of acting unilaterally was to
undermine the foundation on which the post-1945 consensus
had been constructed: the prohibition of force (save
in self-defence, or perhaps, to avert an impending
humanitarian catastrophe) unless formally authorised
by the nations of the world empowered to make collective
decisions in the security council ..."
The moment a state treated the rules of international
law as binding on others but not on itself, the compact
on which the law rested was broken, Bingham argued.
Quoting a comment made by a leading academic lawyer,
he added: "It is, as has been said, 'the difference
between the role of world policeman and world vigilante'."
Bingham said he had very recently provided an advance
copy of his speech to Goldsmith and to Jack Straw,
foreign secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq.
He told his audience he should make it plain they
challenged his conclusions.
Both men emphasised that point last night by intervening
to defend their views as consistent with those held
at the time of the invasion. Goldsmith said in a statement:
"I stand by my advice of March 2003 that it was
legal for Britain to take military action in Iraq.
I would not have given that advice if it were not
genuinely my view. Lord Bingham is entitled to his
own legal perspective five years after the event."
Goldsmith defended what is known as the "revival
argument" - namely that Saddam Hussein had failed
to comply with previous UN resolutions which could
now take effect. Goldsmith added that Tony Blair had
told him it was his "unequivocal view" that
Iraq was in breach of its UN obligations to give up
weapons of mass destruction.
Straw said last night that he shared Goldsmith's
view. He continued: "However controversial the
view that military action was justified in international
law it was our attorney general's view that it was
lawful and that view was widely shared across the
world."
Bingham also criticised the post-invasion record
of Britain as "an occupying power in Iraq".
It is "sullied by a number of incidents, most
notably the shameful beating to death of Mr Baha Mousa
[a hotel receptionist] in Basra [in 2003]", he
said.
Such breaches of the law, however, were not the result
of deliberate government policy and the rights of
victims had been recognised, Bingham observed.
He contrasted that with the "unilateral decisions
of the US government" on issues such as the detention
conditions in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
After referring to mistreatment of Iraqi detainees
in Abu Ghraib, Bingham added: "Particularly disturbing
to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack
of concern for international legality among some top
officials in the Bush administration."
