ABSTRACT
The forty-three-day war waged against Iraq by the United States-led Coalition enjoys a reputation as one of the cleanest and most legal wars in history. There is a critical unspoken assumption that gives rhetorical power to the idea of a legal war—specifically, that a legal war is more humane than an illegal war. Proponents of Critical Legal Studies identify a deeper sense of legitimation. That the Gulf War is considered to be the most legalistic war ever fought adds to its image as a just and relatively humane war. The laws of war have facilitated rather than restrained wartime violence. In both World Wars the laws of war played analogous roles. Conventional wisdom views the war crimes trials held at the end of Second World War as a rare triumph for the laws of war. The Nuremberg Tribunal is widely lauded for resurrecting the rule of law from the carnage of Second World War.
