Law, Morality, and Politics of the Occupation of Iraq: An Interdisciplinary Assessment

U.S. unilateralism, as demonstrated in an unprovoked invasion of Iraq, has raised several concerns in the international community. One such concern relates to the issue of what constitutes a threat to international peace and U.S. security. Another concern pertains to the rights of the victims of war. The latter concern has been examined in this paper. Waging war in Iraq has amounted to the denial of one of the major principles of the UN Charter: non-combatant immunity. The protections of the victims of war have gained the status of customary international law and have long been guaranteed by treaty. The violation of the principle of non-combatant immunity (the victims of war) in the Abu Ghraib Prison has also raised another set of concerns. This paper argues that intervention and occupation in the name of humanitarian causes are warranted on the grounds of preventing injustice and human suffering. Preemptive strikes, however, pose different questions and present difficulties hard to tackle. Policies that intend to justify preemptive strikes for the sake of exporting democracy or altering a regional political landscape are difficult to defend. To address these issues, we rely on an interdisciplinary approach that draws on insights from public law, international relations, legal and normative philosophy, and international humanitarian law, and international law.