I believe that the coalitions invasion of Iraq, was not justified on the basis that it did not fulfil the circumstances which justify the doctrine of humanitarian intervention.
The use of force against one state by another under article 2(4) of the UN Charter is expressly prohibited, however, it is argued that humanitarian intervention is a justifiable exception to this article (p190, r4.10). The argument that humanitarian intervention constitutes a justifiable exception to the UN charter rests the fulfilment of the following legitimate criteria:
1) The circumstances which necessitate intervention should be limited to protecting the most fundamental human right; the right to life.
2) The necessity to intervene arises only where all other peaceful measures are exhausted (p190, r4.10).
3) The intervention is welcomed by the population of the state whose rights are being violated (p192, r4.11).
4) The intervention and the level of force used must be proportionate to the suffering inflicted on the citizens of the state being invaded (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/DeakinLRev/2003/7.html).
English: Former President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein,...
April Glaspie shakes hands with Saddam Hussein
Republic of Iraq Former President Saddam Hussein, ...Thus the cure must not be worse than the disease.
5) A state using force and occupying another state must not profit from such intervention (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/DeakinLRev/2003/7.html).
Given these conditional principles, one must ultimately ask what was the primary reason for the invasion of Iraq? The coalition that the overarching reason for their invasion of Iraq was the prevention of Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction. However this reason appears superficial in light of a failure to locate any such weapons. Also given the fact that foreign states invaded Iraq, it is difficult to conceive of another hypothetical situation, which would justify the use weapons of mass destruction against invading states (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/DeakinLRev/2003/7.html), of which did not occur.
Although other reasons were implied for the need to invade Iraq (one of which was to liberate...
Justification?
Although I do not agree with your views, I rated your essay good because you have written a good essay on YOUR views. You have supportive quotes and references to back your view. I feel it is justified for the Iraqi people that we invaded. They were the people suffering. We may have given the reason for \"WMD\", but we may have just liberated a country that was living a life of fear and unhappiness. Between the Iraqi people and the Pakistani people dancing in the streets after the Taliban and Saddam were overthrown, is justification for me. People do not look at the big picture, but only to what the reason for the coalition to just invade a country? How would people react if we did find WMD in Iraq? We may not have found any weapons yet, but we did find the ingredients and evidence of the potential for making the WMD\'s.
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