Archive for 'Legality' Category
New submission on legality posted on the Digest
by Chris Ames When putting together the previous post linking to a blog piece on the legality of the war from Nigel D. White, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Nottingham, I realised that Professor White had made a submission to the Inquiry in response to the Inquiry’s invitation in 2010. Professor [...]
Iraq, Libya and Syria and the responsibility to protect
by Chris Ames On the Oxford University Press’s Law and Politics blog, Nigel D. White, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Nottingham, has a piece entitled “Lessons from Iraq 10 years on“, which looks at the implications for international law, diplomacy and intervention of both the Iraq was and the Western intervention [...]
Campbell’s spin as transparent as ever
by Chris Ames On my previous post on the issue of the Independent on Sunday article claiming that “Tony Blair blocked the Government’s most senior lawyer [the attorney general] from explaining to Cabinet the legality of the war in Iraq”, it was noted that Alastair Campbell had responded to the story on his blog. Campbell’s [...]
Calls for Inquiry recall over Campbell claim
by Chris Ames The Independent on Sunday reports that: MPs demanded an emergency recall of the Chilcot inquiry last night after new revelations that Tony Blair blocked the Government’s most senior lawyer from explaining to Cabinet the legality of the war in Iraq. The story is based on the new version of Alastair Campbell’s diaries, [...]
Countdown to Iraq
by Andrew Mason Alastair Campbell is scheduled to release Volume Four of his diaries on 20 June. This further edition, entitled ‘The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq’, is the final planned part of his series, although this new volume apparently indicates that he continued to keep a diary beyond 2003, the entries from which may [...]
Also while we were away…
by Andrew Mason Bush, Blair found guilty of war crimes A Malaysian tribunal has found former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Iraq war,
The UN Secretariat and the Use of Force in a Unipolar World
by Chris Lamb The Legality of the Iraq war: A View from within the United Nations Secretariat- Ralph Zacklin CMG This posting provides a link to three lectures given at the University of Cambridge between 22-24 January 2008 by Former Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs at the United Nations, Mr Ralph Zacklin CMG. Mr [...]
The need for clarity
by Chris Ames A number of threads from previous posts on the Digest need pulling together to get a clear picture of how Tony Blair persuaded his attorney general, his Cabinet and Parliament to back war against Iraq on the basis of intelligence in spite of the failure of UN inspectors to find Saddam’s alleged [...]
The Rycroft letter and the Wood statement
by Chris Ames My story with Richard Norton-Taylor for Tuesday’s Guardian contains two very significant revelations about what happened on 17 October 2002, as what would become UN Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1441 was being negotiated. It is based on two documents, only one of which has been published by the Inquiry. The story focuses [...]
The UN route to removing Saddam
by Chris Ames The recently published transcript of the “private” (ie secret) hearing with Sir Tony Brenton, who was “Minister and at times Chargé d’affaires” at the British Embassy in Washington between January 2001 and March 2004 is both fascinating and revealing. The session took place on 17 January this year, just before Tony Blair’s [...]