No - by U172039

International law, in the form of the United Nations Charter, was broken when the coalition led by the United States invaded Iraq. There are only two legal justifications for attacking another country: self-defense, or if the Security Council authorises you to do so. The former clearly is not the case, so the debated point lies within the realm of UN Security Council Resolutions that pertain to Iraq. The Security Council did not authorise the military action in Iraq, and without its blessing the war was rendered illegal.

The UN Charter states:

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.

Article 42:

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Since the Security Council authorised military action in the first Gulf War, and signed a ceasefire resolution at the end of it, any future decisions regarding the ceasefire must be made by the Security Council, not individual Member States. It is up to the Security Council to decide whether Iraq was in breach of the ceasefire AND whether the breach was serious enough to require the use of force. Because of the actions of the US-led coalition, it was unable to do either.

The Security Council assumed responsibility regarding Iraq; therefore it has to be the one making all the decisions. When it comes down to decisions regarding the use of force they have to be completely clear and unambiguous (the UN, remember, is a body set up to preserve peace). This is not the case here. Since 687 there has been no specific threat of military action, the most recent Resolution, 1441, only stipulated 'serious consequences' and NOT military action. The 'serious consequences' were to be decided by the Security Council, in accordance with the UN Charter.

The UN, being a peace-preserving body has to, by its very nature, assume that war is avoidable and that peaceful means should be totally exhausted (Article 2 (3)). This is the case with Iraq, and that is another reason why the response to the ceasefire violations had to be decided on by the UN.

Citing a decade-old authorisation is simply not good enough. UN Security Council Resolutions 660, 678 and 687 were responses to the particular problems that the UN faced at that particular time, namely the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. These resolutions dealt with the occupation of Kuwait and therefore no 'subsequent relevant resolutions' were necessary because Iraq did not reinvade Kuwait and international peace was maintained. To say that any given state that happened to be a member of a 12-year old coalition has the right to end a cease-fire is absurd. It's using the letter of the law against the spirit of the law, and the letter of the law is to be decided by, and interpreted by the entity that wrote it (the UN, a body created to enhance world peace), not any individual nation-states with their own agenda.

It's entirely possible to hastily assemble a legal argument that may appear to authorise force, but the real acid test is whether that argument would stand up in a court of law. The weak legal case presented by the Coalition of the Willing would certainly not. The fact that Bush was seeking a new Security Council Resolution showed that he recognised the legal need for one, and that the current crop of resolutions did not authorise military action.

Finally, as well as the breaches of Articles 41 and 42, the USA prior to, and because of, the war in Iraq contravened the following Principles of Article 2 of the UN Charter:

2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

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.

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.

The war in Iraq went against the spirit of the United Nations and contravened International Law by breaching numerous Articles of the UN Charter.