The Legitimation of Violence: A Critical History of the Laws of War
![handle is hein.journals/hilj35 and id is 55 raw text is: VOLUME 35, NUMBER 1, WINTER 1994
The Legitimation of Violence:
A Critical History of the Laws of War
Chris af Jochnick*
Roger Normand**
Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the pre-
sent controls the past.
George Orwell, 1984
I. INTRODUCTION
A. The Gulf War and the Promise of Law
The forty-three-day war waged against Iraq by the United States-led
Coalition (the Coalition) enjoys a reputation as one of the cleanest
and most legal wars in history.' Despite evidence of disastrous long-
term consequences for Iraqi civilians, the image persists of a new kind
of war, a modern, high-tech operation that decimated the opposing
military with minimal damage to the surrounding population. Coali-
tion leaders bolstered this image by repeatedly invoking international
law in order to condemn Iraqi conduct and to praise the restraint
exhibited by the Coalition forces both in the actual combat and in the
events preceding it.2
* J.D., Harvard Law School; Director of Projects, Center for Economic & Social Rights.
** J.D., Harvard Law School; M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School; Director of Policy, Center for
Economic & Social Rights. We wish to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Founda-
tion for its generous support. We also thank Professor Richard Falk, Professor Henry Steiner,
Sarah Leah Whitson, and Mike Eisner for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Finally, we are grateful to the participants in the Harvard Study Team and International Study
Team human rights missions to Iraq and to the many people in the United States, Iraq, and
Jordan who made these missions possible.
1. Colonel Raymond Ruppert, staff judge advocate for U.S. Central Command and General
H. Norman Schwarzkopf's personal lawyer during the conflict, declared the Gulf War the most
legalistic war we've ever fought. Steven Keeva, Lawyers in the War Room, A.B.A. J., December
1991, at 52.
2. See MIDDLE EAsT WATCH, NEEDLESS DEATHS IN THE GULF WAR: CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
DURING THE AIR CAMPAIGN AND VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR, 75-78 (1991). See also
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENsE, CONDUCT OF THE PERSIAN GULF WAR: FINAL REPORT TO CON-
GRass Appendix 0 (April 1992) [hereinafter D.O.D. REPORT].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hilj35&div=8&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Legitimation of Violence: A Critical History of the Laws of War
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