[JURIST] Major General Thomas Fiscus, Judge Advocate General of the US Air Force [official profile], talked to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Friday about how lawyers help to choose US bombing targets so as to avoid violating the Geneva Conventions. Listen to the interview .

[JURIST] An editorial in the Glasgow Herald suggests that as the technology of war changes, the Geneva Conventions and the law of war need to keep up:

Once the conflict is over, America, and Britain, should assemble an international conference to frame a fifth Geneva Convention that reflects the realities and sensibilities of the 21st century. Questions need to be asked about the way in which weaponry is developing. Is it right or reasonable, for example, to leave civilians unharmed but destroy the infrastructure that gives them clean water? Should states be held to account for any illnesses sustained as a result of the weapons deployed, even if the harm takes many years to surface? We cannot outlaw war, more is the tragedy, yet we can further lessen its evil.

[JURIST] Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations spoke to reporters at UN Headquarters Friday, assailing the UN for allegedly breaching a number of its peacekeeping, disarmament and humanitarian responsibilities, and deploring Secretary General Kofi Annan's failure to condemn the US and UK attack on Iraq and take adequate steps within the United Nations structure to keep the peace. Watch recorded video , now online from the UN.

[JURIST] Speaking Thursday to the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, State Department legal adviser William Howard Taft IV said that President Bush's authority to use force in Iraq under both US and international law is "clear":

First, it goes without saying that the President's authority to use force under U.S. law is clear. Under the Constitution he has not simply the authority but the responsibility to use force to protect our national security. Congress has confirmed in two separate resolutions in 1991 and again last fall that the President has authority to use our armed forces in the specific case of Iraq.

Under international law, the basis for use of force is equally strong. There is clear authorization from the Security Council to use force to disarm Iraq. The President referred to this authority in his speech to the American people on Monday night. The source of this authority is UNSCR 678, which was the authorization to use force for the Gulf War in January 1991. In April of that year, the Council imposed a series of conditions on Iraq, including most importantly extensive disarmament obligations, as a condition of the ceasefire declared under UNSCR 687. Iraq has "materially breached" these disarmament obligations, and force may again be used under UNSCR 678 to compel Iraqi compliance.

[JURIST] In an address to the State Duma (lower house of the Russian Parliament) in Moscow Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov offered his country's latest legal assessment of the war in Iraq:

This action does not have legal grounds, of course. Attempts to justify it by referring to earlier UN Security Council resolutions are futile because, according to Resolution 1441, the degree of Baghdad's cooperation with the UN should be evaluated by the UN Security Council on the basis of UNMOVIC and IAEA reports. In other words, only the UN Security Council itself can determine any violation of Resolution 1441 by the Iraqi side and decide what actions should be taken in this context in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter and if there are grounds for the use of force against Iraq. In the absence of any such decision by the Security Council the use of force against Iraq - I want to stress this anew - has no legal grounds.....

There are also questions about the announced plans for the military occupation of Iraq. In the absence of the appropriate decision of the UN Security Council, such occupation will be unlawful because it will be a result of the unlawful use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a state.

[JURIST] Lawyers with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website] said Friday that US officials involved in military operations against Iraq could be liable for war crimes prosecution for the "Shock and Awe" operation now under way:

A Senior Pentagon official has stated publicly: "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad...you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapon at Hiroshima, not in days or weeks but in minutes." The purpose is to "take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In two, three, four, five days, they are physically, emotionally, and psychologically exhausted.".....

According to CCR Legal Director, Jeffrey Fogel, "The laws of war prohibit civilians being targeted and there is a fundamental rule that Parties to the conflict must distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives. Parties must restrict their operations to the targeting of military objectives. The proposed U.S. "shock and awe" strategy fails on all counts and as such constitutes a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute [of the International Criminal Court]."

Generally, Americans carrying out war crimes may be able to do so without fear of prosecution before the International Criminal Court (ICC) because one of the pre-conditions to the Court exercising jurisdiction is that the individual concerned be a national of a state that is a Party to the ICC. However, the Court also has jurisdiction over crimes carried out on the territory of a State which is a Party, or onboard a ship or aircraft of a State which is a Party

It has been widely reported that U.S. bombers to be involved in the "shock and awe” strategy are based at the U.S. Air Base on Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean and will be loaded with cruise missiles there for use against Iraq. Diego Garcia is UK territory, which it leases to the U.S. As the UK is a Party to the ICC, crimes under the statute, including war crimes, committed wholly or in part on Diego Garcia fall within the Court’s jurisdiction.

[JURIST] The Voice of America reports that at a news conference in Baghdad Friday Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf accused the US of targeting civilian locations [VOA report], and displayed photographs of what he said were civilian casualties from recent missile and bombing raids. For legal background on this general issue, see the US Air Force Intelligence Targeting Guide section on Targeting and International Law, available from the website of the Federation of American Scientists. The US Department of Defense gave a background briefing on targeting as recently as March 5.

UPDATE [4:30 PM ET]: A Friday US Central Command press release announcing that the air campaign of the Iraq operation had shifted into "high gear" earlier today says that "Coalition aircraft never target civilian populations or infrastructure and go to painstaking lengths to avoid injury to civilians and damage to civilian facilities."

[JURIST] The US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] held Friday that the provisions of 47 U.S.C. Sec. 227(b)(1)(C) regulating unsolicited faxes satisfy the constitutional test for regulation of commercial speech and did not violate defendants' First Amendment rights. The Court said that there is a substantial government interest in protecting the public from the cost-shifting and interference caused by unwanted fax ads, and that the means Congress has chosen to address those harms directly and materially advances the governmental interest. Read State of Missouri v. American Blast [PDF opinion].

[JURIST] The Harvard Law Record reports from Harvard Law School [official website] on law students' reaction to the start of war in Iraq.... According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Aviam Soifer, the new dean of the University of Hawaii's William S. Richardson School of Law, will make about $250,000 a year, twice the salary of his predecessor.

[JURIST] Michael Newdow, the plaintiff in the US Ninth Circuit Pledge of Allegiance cases opposed to "under God", spoke recently at Duke Law School. Watch recorded video of his lecture, now online from Duke Law School.

[JURIST] The US State Department confirmed Thursday that it has expelled three Iraqi diplomats from the Iraqi Interests section of the Algerian Embassy in Washington, DC, and has also expelled two members of the Iraqi Mission to the UN. Expulsions of diplomats to the United States are governed by the terms of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations [text], Article 9 of which states:

The receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision, notify the sending State that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission is persona non grata or that any other member of the staff of the mission is not acceptable. In any such case, the sending State shall, as appropriate, either recall the person concerned or terminate his functions with the mission.

Laws and regulations in force in the United States regarding the residence of aliens shall not be applied...in such manner as to require any such person to leave the United States on account of any activities performed by him in his official capacity. In case of abuse of such privileges of residence by any such person in activities in the United States outside his official capacity, it is understood that the privileges referred to in Section 11 shall not be construed to grant him exemption from the laws and regulations of the United States regarding the continued residence of aliens...

Through our diplomatic missions overseas, the United States has made a formal request to those countries in which the Iraqis have a diplomatic presence to suspend Iraq's diplomatic presence in country on a temporary basis. We've also asked them to take steps to assure the prompt departure of the leading representatives of Saddam Hussein's regime.

We've made this request because Saddam Hussein's refusal to comply with 12 years of United Nations Security Council resolutions to disarm and has left the international community with no option but to disarm him forcefully. For this reason, the United States has commenced military action that will permanently disarm Iraq and bring freedom to the Iraqi people.

Our expectation is that once an interim Iraqi authority is in place it will name interim replacement representatives and diplomatic missions that can reopen and truly represent the interests of the Iraqi people rather than represent a corrupt and ruthless regime.