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Your correspondent who suggests that air strikes against Iraq would not be unlawful as the US/UK are merely "enforcing a peace treaty" is mistaken. Bombing Iraq would not only be immoral and impractical, it would also be illegal. SCRes 687, the ceasefire resolution, returns the combatants to a state of peace; it is not like the old 'armistices' which are temporary cessations of hostilities, in which conflict can be resumed if a party seriously breaches the agreement. Even if SC Res 687 was an armistice, it would require a declaration by a party to the ceasefire - here the U.N. Security Council - that a material breach of the treaty has occurred to open the way for the resumption of hostilities; of course, this has not happened either. Since Iraq and the US/UK are currently at peace with each other (in a legal sense), use of force would amount to an armed attack, in direct violation of the UN Charter. Moreover, if the bombing campaign is sustained (as it looks like they will be), this amounts to a "war of aggression", which under the unanimously accepted 1974 Definition of Aggression entails criminal responsibility for the perpetrators. That is, those behind the airstrikes will have committed a crime against international peace. Ipso facto, Blair and Clinton will be in the same legal category as Karadic, Mladic, Pol Pot, Goering. ######################################################## Glen Rangwala 1 Macaulay House or via Trinity College 16 Newton Road Cambridge Cambridge CB2 1TQ CB2 2AL Tel: 01223 462187 ######################################################## -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html