This morning, Israel launched a major military operation against Iran targeting its nuclear programme, including facilities, individual scientists and military leadership. In this post, I will provide a quick, preliminary analysis of the legality of Israel’s use of force against Iran as a matter of the jus ad bellum. As I will explain, Israel’s use of force against Iran is, on the facts as we know them, almost certainly illegal. The only justification that Israel can provide for its use of force is self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter – using force to repel an armed attack, subject to the criteria of necessity and proportionality. The first point to clarify here is that the nature and stated goals of Israel’s use of force – damaging Iran’s nuclear programme and preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon that could be used against Israel – are explicitly about deflecting a future armed attack by Iran against Israel, i.e. an attack that is yet to occur. In other words, this is not a…
Iran
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Location, Location, Location: Targeting Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Questions of Extraterritoriality in NIACs
In the early hours of Wednesday morning on 31 July 2024, it was confirmed that Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who had traveled to Tehran for the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president, was killed in Iran's capital as a result of a strike in his place of temporary residence. The specifics of this strike are not…
Corporate accountability and Iranian drones in the Ukraine war: Could sanctions lead to prosecutions for international crimes?
Throughout the Ukraine conflict, allegations have been made against foreign businesses for providing various types of direct or indirect support for Russia’s military attacks. Most recently, firms were placed under US sanctions on 15 November 2022 for ‘the production or ongoing transfer to Russia of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles used by Russia [in] devastating attacks…
Women, Life, Freedom: Have international lawyers run out of words?
We have entered the fourth week into the Iranian protests (under the moto of “women, life, freedom” ) sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman from Iranian Kurdistan, following her arrest by the Iranian morality police for allegedly breaching the veiling laws. Since then, Amnesty International has reported that the government’s ultra-violent response…
Ashraf Ghani’s ambitions to divert the Helmand River now serve his enemy, the Taliban: an International Law perspective
One tragedy follows another in Afghanistan. Occurring amid many other dramatic events, the diversion of the Helmand (Hirmand) River, which flows through Afghanistan and Iran, by the Taliban in January 2022 was almost lost in the news. This deliberate act can cause huge economic losses, degrade entire ecosystems, and threaten the lives of those dependent upon its waters.
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