War against Iraq would be illegal without UN backing, a group of international law experts from Britain's leading universities wrote in a newspaper yesterday.
The academics, mostly from Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Economics, also said an attack without UN Security Council support would "seriously undermine the international rule of law."
"The doctrine of pre-emptive self-defense against an attack that might arise at some hypothetical future time has no basis in international law," the 16 experts wrote in a letter to The Guardian. "Before military action can be lawfully undertaken against Iraq, the Security Council must have indicated its clearly expressed assent. It has not yet done so."
The US and Britain have said they are prepared to use force to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction, even without the support of the Security Council for a new resolution authorizing war.
France, Russia and China favor giving weapons inspectors more time, and could veto the resolution offered by the US, Britain and Spain. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he reserves the right to use force in the event of an "unreasonable veto" blocking military action.
But the law experts said Blair would still be acting illegally. "The prime minister's assertion that in certain circumstances a veto becomes `unreasonable' and may be disregarded has no basis in international law," their letter said.
"The UK has used its security council veto on 32 occasions since 1945. Any attempt to disregard these votes on the ground that they were `unreasonable' would have been deplored as an unacceptable infringement of the UK's right to exercise a veto under UN charter article 27.
"A decision to undertake military action in Iraq without proper Security Council authorization will seriously undermine the international rule of law," the letter said.
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