Headlines pouring out over what Sir Michael Wood said this morning to the Chilcot Inquiry:

Straw rejected advice that Iraq invasion was ‘unlawful’

Let me give you my potted view of this as a lawyer by training but not practice.

The various FCO and other documents (some formerly SECRET) now published on the Inquiry website go into this question with great clarity.

In one corner were Sir M Wood and other FCO Legal Advisers arguing that the issue was really quite simple, namely that the various familiar conditions available for using force under international law had not been met. See eg here.

And see too this heavyweight Wood memo pointing out the risks to Ministers, officials and soldiers of action under domestic civil and criminal law of the UK taking unlawful action at the international law level.

In the other corner was Jack Straw, showing a lively and close interest in the legal aspects of this, and no doubt behind him PM Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown. Their argument was more complex and subtle, but not trivial:

  • that Iraq had been threatened by the UNSC with the most serious measures if it did comply with UN Security Council resolutions
  • that it was clear that Iraq had not so complied, ie was in ‘material (ie serious) breach of its international legal obligations
  • that (crucially) it was implicit on the face of the relevant resolutions (and quite clear from the negotiating history) that in such circumstances military action against Iraq could follow lawfully without further UNSC resolutions
  • but also that in the inevitable haggling this had been left deliberately ‘ambiguous’ in the key UNSC resolution, as the price paid by those favouring and opposing action against Iraq alike to get the resolution passed  
  • in short, that there was a clear if perhaps not obvious line of legal authority justifying what the UK’s duly elected leaders saw as the right policy

Heady stuff. It is just remarkable to see original documents of this frankness and high-level sensitivity made public in this way.

Do the enemies of democracy round the world look on all this in nervous amazement at the confident strength of our beliefs and principles?

Or do they lick their lips, (a) smirking that exercises such as this show that the UK has totally lost the plot, and (b) rejoicing that no future UK leader for a long time to come will dare take robust action against sickening dictatorships which defy international opinion and kill their own people for years on end?

Still, amidst all the furious debate, one happy ending.

Law is one thing. Justice is (sometimes) another.