Analyzing the Securitization of International Law as Lawfare
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Date
2022
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Publisher
UMT.lahore
Abstract
The American intervention in the Middle East, namely in Iraq (2003) and has widely been
regarded as controversial by academics and practitioners of international politics, alike. The
debate over the rationale of one of the greatest war of the century - in terms of its impact on the
global politics in the unipolar world - of the century remains highly contentious over whether the
American invasion was grounded on genuine concerns of self-defense, terrorism; or whether the
Americans – supported by their NATO allies and the UK – had ulterior motives rooted in the
protection of national interests which exceeded their military security. Debates over the rationality
of the intervention, the justification, and the legality of the intervention has been held widely and
massively arisen in academic circles; however, there exists a lacuna on how and why the USA
managed to sell the intervention to its own people and to the rest of the world. The aim of this
paper is twofold, the first aims to explain the legal rationale of USA intervention in Iraq and the
second aims for explaining the lawfare strategy used by the USA for her intervention. The paper
will argue that the USA securitized the Saddam regime in Iraq and made it a matter of urgency
under international law and its national security so as to achieve its own national interests and
thereby strategically employed a strategy of lawfare against those who had threatened its national
interests.