3 - Public Debate in 2003: The Iraq War

Summary

In chapter 3, I argue that international law appeared in the 2003 debates primarily as an autonomous reason for or against war. Speakers invoked the legality or illegality of the invasion of Iraq as reason enough, on its own, to justify or condemn Australia’s actions. Speakers constructed international law as a measure of the justifiability of government action separate from any other measure such as morality or participation in an alliance, calling on a power that they believed international legal status would create. The 2003 debates included some examples of international law as a collective justification, but these were generally subordinate to the autonomous form of international legal language.