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Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Conflict of Laws

Anticipatory self-defense

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Israel's Air Strike Against The Osiraq Reactor: A Retrospective, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

Israel's Air Strike Against The Osiraq Reactor: A Retrospective, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Solarz argued that Israel's air strike "must be considered an understandable and legitimate act of self-defense." The point is that if a war exists between Iraq and Israel, Israel's bombing of the Osiraq nuclear reactor is just a normal and legitimate part of the general conduct of war. Whether or not Israel or Iraq, or both, regarded themselves as being in a state of war, any hostilities between them would amount to separate breaches of the peace in the eyes of the international community and would subject either country to forcible intercession by the U.N. Security Council. I quoted the …


Israel's Air Strike Upon The Iraqi Nuclear Reactor, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

Israel's Air Strike Upon The Iraqi Nuclear Reactor, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

The destructive potential of nuclear weapons is so enormous as to call into question any and all received rules of international law regarding the trans-boundary use of force. Many of the old rationales for these rules no longer apply. At the same time, the shared values underlying the rules apply more emphatically than ever, for the stake is global survival. I have tried to suggest some of the questions that must be asked about as apparently "simple" an incident as the Israeli attack on the nuclear reactor in Iraq.