War Crimes Trials for Bush and Blair?

Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, made headlines (and here) last week by writing that former President George W. Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, should be referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution for the crime of aggression, for their role in initiating the war against Iraq in 2003. This has renewed the many debates about the legality of the invasion of Iraq.

In the context of our current study of the law of treaties, however, the important questions we would want to address here are: 1) was the invasion of Iraq an unjustifiable violation of the U.N. Charter prohibition on the use of force, for which we would have to analyze the relevant U.N. Charter provisions; 2) If so, does that give rise to individual criminal liability under some treaty; and 3) Does the treaty which established the International Criminal Court, the Rome Statute, create jurisdiction over such an offence such that the ICC could prosecute Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair?

We will look at some of these questions later in the course when we look at the use of force, and international criminal law.