From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Wed Mar 19 2003 - 06:36:13 MST
John Clarke writes:
> "Brett Paatsch" <paatschb@ocean.com.au>
>
> > The United States signed the United Nations Charter and
> > (under the Bush administration) resolution 1441. These are
> > solemn agreements made on very serious matters and any
> > breaches of them and the consequences of any breaches of
> > them by the US (under the Bush administration) will remain
> > on the public record longer than Saddam Hussein or
> > President Bush remain at the head of their respective
> > Nation states.
>
> Exactly what international agreement, solemn or otherwise, has
> the USA breached?
The UN Charter is the international agreement that is at issue.
Whether is has *actually* been breached I must confess I am
not as certain as I was. I am still checking out the arguments
that I only recently got access to from the governments of the
UK and Australia and so are a bunch of other folk. I do *want*
to get to the bottom of it though, it is annoying to me that there
is debate about the meaning of a written contract even now.
The whole legal uncertainty thing wreaks of bad faith and bad
judgement and possibly both.
I do think that there *is* an answer to the legal question of
whether the U.S. (and/or the UK and Australia for that matter)
will be acting illegally (i.e.. in breach of the UN Charter) when
they do take military action against Iraq.
(Aside: I think it would have been logically valid, moral,
honourable, and not illegal for President Bush to have, in very
particular circumstances, discovered that the US had no further
obligations under the Charter as the Charter itself had been
voided by manifest bad faith on the part of another permanent
security council member. The very lawfulness of the law at the
security council level arises because of the good faith agreement
of security council members and so, imo, when the good faith
is gone so has the obligation to continue to honour obligations
that were taken on in free exchange for the obligations of others.
President Bush did not in fact take this path however.)
> I know of no treaty the USA signed that said it will not use
> military force unless it gets the OK from the UN.
The US did sign the UN Charter and the UN Charter at Article
2 para. 4 states "Members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any state..."
There are two exception to the above prohibition, one under
Article 51 that relates to self-defence and another Article 42
whereby the Security Council can authorise military force.
> The situation is certainly
> not unprecedented, just a few years ago the USA kicked
> Slobodan Milosovic out of power in Kosovo without a UN
> blessing and it was not the end of the world, in fact I do not
> believe the it would be a happier place if that murderer was
> still engaged in ethnic cleansing.
The current situation can be differentiated from Kosovo in that
unlike with Kosovo, the Security Council is "seized of the matter"
and the US has by signing off on 1441 acknowledged that the
UN Security Council is seized of the matter. Because each
permanent security council member can "veto" any resolution
that it thinks is against its interests it is not very common for a
clear resolution against one the interests of a permanent
security council member to come into being. This suggests to me
that at one stage at least the Bush administration was genuinely
trying to work within the UN in good faith.
>
> > "French President Jacques Chirac said yesterday he was
> > willing to accept a one-month to two month deadline
> > provided the move was endorsed by the chief UN weapons
> > inspectors"
>
> Translation: France will never EVER endorse force to remove
> Saddam, it has not in the 4 ½ months since 1441 called for
> disarmament or face serious consequences, and I don't think
> things will be the slightest different in 5 ½ months or
> 6 ½ months or 666 ½ months. And a rather silly Swedish
> paper shuffler named Hans Blix feels the same way. As for
> many Americas, they feel unwilling to trust their lives that the
> UN will protect them from the next massive terrorists attack;
> the UN seems incapable of enforcing an overdue library
> book fine.
Well yes, I guess that is one *possible* translation. ;-)
Regards,
Brett Paatsch
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