Could it ever happen?

[anotheoldgit]

According to an article in the Guardian, author George Monbiot has made the following comment:

/// today I am launching a website – www.arrestblair.org – whose purpose is to raise money as a reward for people attempting a peaceful citizen's arrest of the former prime minister.///

http://www.guardian.c...-war-criminal-chilcot

Is it at all feasible for the war in Iraq to be officially deemed 'illegal', and as a consequent for Tony Blair to face charges?

Please note that this is a Guardian article, not a Daily Mail one.

[Sqad]

One question"

1) Was the war legal?

The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said yes...........Tony Blair off the hook.

[jake-the-peg]

I don't think international law works the same way as civil law.

There's not a hard and fast definition of a "legal" or "illegal" war.

Usually war criminals are prosecuted for crimes against Humanity or genocide neither of which would be likely to stand up here.

I don't think anyone was prosecuted for "Invading Poland"

Or invading Suez for that matter!

There seems to be an arguable ( if not compelling ) case that the war was legal that's probably all that's needed in the long run

[anotheoldgit]

jake-the-peg

Isn't the bombing of innocent civilians a 'crime against humanity'also?

Don't you think that Churchill would have been tried and convicted, if Germany had won the war?

[MarkRae]

He would have been summarily executed because he was Jewish.

[Sqad]

Mark....I don't think he was Jewish.

His grandfather might have been, but Winston's parents were not Jewish.

I stand to be corrected.

[anotheoldgit]

His mother Jennie was Jewish, her father changed his name from Leonard Jacobson to Leonard/Jerome.

[Sandy-Wroe]

International law is winners law. Kissinger comes to mind as a man who should have graced the dock in The Hague for the actions he authorised in Cambodia, Chile, and Argentina. Instead, he is lauded, in some circles, as a 'statesman'.
Blair will grow fat on the proceeds of after dinner speeches and never give a thought to the blood on his hands or the prospect of PC Plod feeling his collar.

[Quizmonster]

As Jake said, there IS no agreed definition of "illegal war", so anyone who imagines there is is simply talking through a hole in his hat.
If "killing of innocent civilians" was an international crime, President Mitterand should have been tried for the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand. One victim or 100,000...what's the difference in terms of criminality?
In addition, I have no doubt but that "innocent civilians" died when NATO and Russia went into Kosovo in the nineties. (Despite the fact that no UN sanction was given for THAT incursion either, I don't recall anyone screaming "Illegal war!" then; nor can I recall just how much oil we got for doing so!)
France got involved in Indo-China and China got involved in the Korean War, so each and every one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council got into a violent situation when they felt it suited them to do so and let "illegality" go to blazes!

[fredpuli47]

The only thing that struck me when I read Public International Law was that it gave academics something to write and lecture about! 'Conflict of Laws' , the private version, made sense and, above all was practical.It's useful to have every country agree whose laws applied to a contract between a French company and a Brazilian company to sell goods which were in Brazil when the contract was made in Scotland, or which law(s) applied to a house and yacht in France on a death when the British owner's will was made in England and the rest of his wealth there, or he died without a will !
International law is a nonsense.As if an British soldier is to avoid court-martial in the UK because he disobeyed orders in an 'illegal war' waged by Britain ! Complying with it is just window-dressing and powerful countries use it as justification (or don't bother) at will, to do things they will do anyway.

[Quizmonster]

Well, it's nice to have a barrister...ie Fred above...say pretty much what I said in my earlier response...countries do what they conceive to be in their own best interests, paying no regard to what lawyers - international or otherwise - or anyone else has to say.
Thus, France, Russia and China had far too much to lose financially even to CONSIDER agreeing with Britain and the USA about the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The entire Chilcot thing is a manifest nonsense and the sooner the anti-Blair lynch-mob grasp that, wake up and smell the reality, the better.