Letter to the Editor: US Syria attack

Bruce Kent, MAW Vice President, responds to an article by Robert Fox in the Evening Standard, following the US missile attack on Syria.

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Dear Editor

US STRIKES ON SYRIA

Robert Fox (ES 7th April 17 p5) could not have got it more wrong. Individual States have no legal right whatever to interpret United Nations resolutions and to deduce that they individually are authorised by such resolutions to take military action. Military action has to be clearly authorised by the Security Council or, in an extreme case like Korea, by the General Assembly.

The only exception to this is in the UN Charter article 51 which allows for immediate military self- defence if a state is attacked. The United States has not been attacked. Even then such authorisation ends when the Security Council has ‘taken measures necessary to maintain International peace and security’.

yours faithfully
Bruce Kent
Vice President
Movement for the Abolition of War