"The bulk of eminent legal opinion in the West has long agreed that the invasion of Iraq was unlawful. One of the architects of the war, Paul Wolfowitz, has admitted 'it was probably illegal.' Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix does not 'buy the argument' that Iraq’s violation of previous resolutions makes the war legitimate. Even the British Foreign Office, it now turns out, sent a secret memo to Tony Blair’s Cabinet advising that resolution 1441 failed to justify war. Blair’s attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, also voiced concerns that the war lacked legality without a second UN resolution.
"Last year, more than 40 Australian experts on international law and human rights signed a joint statement that the invasion of Iraq is a “fundamental violation” of international law that could involve war crimes and crimes against humanity. Robert Black QC, Professor of Scots law at Edinburgh University, and a key figure in the Lockerbie trial in The Hague, has written: 'It is perfectly plain that none of the Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq authorised armed intervention. It's possible to cobble together what looks like a legal argument, but the real test of any legal argument is whether a court would accept that argument.' Black weighed up the odds of the International Court of Justice supporting the Blair Government’s case. In his view, 'the odds against it are greater than 10 to one.'"
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