Militarism, the rule of law
Editor’s note: The author holds a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law and is currently studying for a master’s in international relations at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
In response to the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and others at the Bagdad International Airport, I write to express my deep concern about U.S. militarism and disregard for foundational international — and domestic — law.
The justification from the Trump administration for this aggressive and undemocratic act (which will almost certainly have lasting and costly consequences) is legally insufficient and quite simply absurd when subjected to basic scrutiny.
The claim that Soleimani was plotting to kill Americans and can therefore be preemptively and extrajudicially assassinated may comport with the 2002 National Security Strategy’s unilateral adaptation of UN Charter Article 51 self-defense (in which the Bush administration developed an anticipatory self-defense doctrine without an imminent threat requirement to justify preemptive aggression), but is quite plainly at odds with both the black letter law and guiding intent of the UN Charter.
That the United States government disregards international law on the use of force is, however, far from revelatory. As the recent Washington Post article (“The Infinity War”) in connection with the Afghanistan Papers release summarizes, the practice of compliance has long since been abandoned. The dirty wars under Reagan, the invasion of Panama under the first Bush, the bombing of Serbia under Clinton, the invasion of Iraq under the second Bush, and the regime change in Libya and expansion of drone strike operations into Syria under Obama are but a few examples of this long legacy. Open contempt for international law as a constraint on United States power projection may have reached new heights under the Trump administration, but the sentiment that the United States is above the law has been a constant of post-World War II policy — consider U.S. reservations to the Genocide Convention, response to the Nicaraguan (1986) and Yugoslav (1999) International Court of Justice cases and active hostility to the International Criminal Court as a couple of graphic illustrations.
Suppose that Hassan Rouhani ordered the assassination of a member of the Joint
Chiefs, claiming the strike was justified because high-level
U.S. military officials were plotting to kill Iranians (which would clearly be an accurate claim). I venture to contend that such a justification would be portrayed as absurd and illegitimate in the U.S.
I am a proud Californian and American and sincerely want what is best for our country and, indeed, our world. I am of the decided persuasion that the long trajectory away from rule of law toward might-makes-right-inspired militarism in unbridled form is inescapably deleterious for both.
— Ryan Swan/Vallejo