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9 Int'l Comm. L. Rev. 405 (2007)
The Third World Approach to Debating the Legality of the Iraq War

handle is hein.journals/intlfddb9 and id is 417 raw text is: MARTINUS NIJHOFF INTRNATIONA COMITY P u B L I S H E R s International Community Law Review 9 (2007) 405-426 LAw RNIaw A Third World Approach to Debating the Legality of the Iraq War Usha Natarajan PhD Candidate, Australian National University E-mail: NatarajanU@law.anu.edu.au Abstract The international law discipline engaged in vigorous debate over the legality of the 2003 Iraq invasion. However, once the furor over the invasion died down, and attention turned to management of the ongo- ing reality of Coalition occupation of Iraq, the legality debate risked seeming redundant. While the mainstream debate answers questions as to whether the invasion was legal, its usefulness is limited if it does not answer other important legal questions. What role has international law played in the Iraq inva- sion and its aftermath? What role will the invasion play in the evolution of international law? Taking a Third World approach to the Iraq invasion can help better answer these questions and shed light on legal aspects of the war that were ignored or obscured by the mainstream debate. The first and larger part of this paper will discuss some of these issues. The latter part of this paper will consider the potential limits of Third World approaches as a critical methodology. Keywords Third World approaches to international law; TWAIL; 2003 Iraq War; legality of use of force; Security Council authorization; preemptive self-defense; humanitarian intervention; war on terrorism. I. Introduction Before commencing discussion of Third World Approaches to International Law ('TWAIE) and the legality of the Iraq war - an investigation that has, for me, raised as many questions as it has provided answers - it may be useful to briefly outline my background and how I arrived at this topic of study. My acquaintance with TWAIL has been recent but definitive. Being an inter- national lawyer of South Asian origin, I sometimes wonder if there was a certain degree of inevitability in my feeling an affinity for this approach above all others. While I spent my early childhood in various parts of Asia, my parents eventually immigrated to Australia in my teenage years. Growing up in Melbourne, but with periodic returns to India to visit relatives, it was impossible not to wonder about the disparities in quality of life between the West and the Third World. I finished high school with a vague idea that the problems of global injustice needed a global solution, and therefore I would study international law in order to learn more about justice, and aim to work for the United Nations because it was the © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10. 1163/187197407X261412

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