Somalia and International Law

By BJ

A few folks over at the Slate law blog have been having an interesting discussion over whether or not the airstrikes carried out by the US in Somalia are legal under international law. One of them asks:

Does Anyone Care Whether the Bombing in Somalia Was Legal?

I’m thinking the obvious answer is, “No, not really”. I mean, I understand why it should be important, but even though I wrote a long post on the overall situation in Somalia after the latest US strike, the question of the strike’s legality never even occurred to me. It has just been so long apparent that the US isn’t terribly respectful of others territorial sovereignty that it’s no longer a question.

And this is not about just the Bush administration, whose penchant for flaunting international law has spread to multiple other areas to a far greater degree, but about pretty much every US administration since WWII when the UN Charter became the law that the US was ignoring. Seriously, name me one administration that didn’t in some way, somewhere, go well beyond what is ordinarily considered international law by arranging coups, training and supplying militants and insurgents, bombing and sending in strike teams, all the way up to outright invasions, of some various number of poor, and occasionally not-so-poor, countries?

And then there are the actions of America's main allies in the country,

A leading human rights group on Tuesday accused Ethiopian troops in Somalia of killing civilians and committing atrocities, including slitting people's throats, gouging out eyes and gang-raping women.

Under the circumstances, worrying about whether or not the odd US bombing run is technically legal or not just doesn't seem that important.