ABSTRACT
At around March 2003, international law came briefly out of its closet of welloiled diplomatic lunches and obscure academic seminars and gloried in a few months of fame. The stakes were high, indeed the highest a government and a nation can face: going to war. The law has played a secondary walk-on role in the drama of this ultimate decision of life and death in the last fifty years. What distinguished the discussions in the House of Commons in early 2003 and for a few months afterwards was the impression that international law had moved to the front of the stage and become the protagonist in deliberations and decision-making. Newspapers were full of articles and letters by international lawyers, people discussed the finer points of the UN Charter and various Security Council resolutions, the chattering classes dissected the small print of hitherto obscure treaty clauses and legal concepts. Academics often complain that the world does not listen to them and, as a result, important decisions are taken without a full understanding of the issues. In the debate leading to the Iraq war, this changed radically.
