Iraq
| Published date | 01 June 2005 |
| Author | Jutta Brunnée,Adrian Di Giovanni |
| Date | 01 June 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000207 |
| Subject Matter | Security and Defence Policies |
Jutta
Brunnée
&
Adrian
Di
Giovanni
Iraq
A fork
in the
road for
a
special
relationship?
In
his September 2003 address to the United Nations general assembly,
Secretary
General
Kofi
Annan warned that the UN charter's legal and insti-
tutional framework on the use of military force among states had come to
a
"fork in the road."1 He asked a "high-level panel on threats, challenges
and change" to consider practical options for reform. Quite clearly, the
sec-
retary general's initiative was a response to the combination of the United
States's
rhetoric of preventive war, its assertion that the UN was risking
irrelevance
in security matters, and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It
thus
seems obvious where the United States stands in the debate that
Annan launched on "whether it is possible to continue on the basis agreed
upon,
or whether radical changes are needed." It may seem equally clear
that Canada's answer is that the world must maintain the existing multilat-
eral
framework. In other words, it may seem that Canada and the United
States
are now headed down diverging legal and policy roads, with poten-
tially
serious implications for their "special" relationship. Indeed, it is tempt-
ing to see the fact that Canada chose not to
support
the
US-led
intervention
in Iraq and the American displeasure with that decision as indicative of
what is to come.
Jutta
Brunnée
is
professor
of law and
Metcalf Chair
in
environmental
law at the
University
of
Toronto. Adnan
Di
Giovanni
is an LLM
candidate
at the New
York
University
School
of
Law.
1
Kofi Annan, address
to
the general
assembly,
New
York,
23
September
2003,
www.un.org.
I International Journal
|
Spring
2005
| 375 |
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