The Use of Force in the Iraq War and the Syrian Airstrikes from TWAIL

This book provides a historical and legal contextualisation of the Iraq War and the subsequent airstrikes conducted in Syria in 2017 and 2018. It critically examines the legality of these interventions assessing whether they can be justified under UN Security Council authorisation or as a humanitarian intervention. The legal and theoretical analysis concludes that both actions constituted breaches of international law with such justificatory arguments functioning primarily as pretexts for the use of force.The book adopts the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) framework a critical perspective that challenges the Eurocentrism and structural bias embedded within international law. From a TWAIL standpoint doctrines presented as neutral or universal often perpetuate colonial hierarchies and serve the interests of powerful states. Accordingly this approach illuminates the underlying political motives behind Western interventions and interrogates the role of international law in legitimising practices of domination under the guise of legality and humanitarianism.