The Impact on International Law of a Decade of Measures against Iraq A European-American Dialogue Co-sponsored by the University of Michigan Law School and the EJIL In August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait; by the end of February 1991 its forces had been expelled. Since that time the world has witnessed more than a decade of endeavours to use international law, often in novel and innovative ways, to achieve a wide range of objectives. They have included measures to restore the status quo ante in Kuwait, to resolve longstanding border disputes, to compensate those who suffered loss, to protect population groups in the north and south who were at particular risk, to compel compliance with a variety of demands designed to ensure good behaviour on the part of the Iraqi Government in the future, to mitigate some of the consequences of sanctions, and in general to punish Iraq for its aggression. Just as the international community's struggle against apartheid in southern Africa gave rise to many important precedents which have been of significance far beyond the context in which they were originally formulated, so too have some of the measures taken against Iraq. The purpose of the present symposium is not to describe or analyse those measures for their own sake, but rather to examine the impact which they have had on the development of international law and on the new roles entrusted to international organizations. While the significance of the measures is undoubted, the results can be interpreted in radically different ways. Thus one hypothesis would be that the unusually powerful and cohesive coalition that came together to condemn Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and subsequently to impose a range of sanctions and other measures, contributed in highly creative and constructive ways to the development of existing international norms in a variety of areas. They include the use of force, arms verification, human rights protection and monitoring, sanctions enforcement, and the provision of compensation. A contrary hypothesis would be that the nature of the coalition, and its subsequent fracturing, resulted in the development of various precedents which, in the future, are likely to be neither desirable nor sustainable in relation to other cases. The views reflected in the symposium are appropriately heterogeneous and it remains, as always, for readers to draw their own conclusions as to the overall significance of this important episode in the development of international law. The symposium would not have been possible without the financial support given by the University of Michigan School of Law, and the active encouragement and collaboration of Dean Jeffrey Lehman, Assistant Dean Virginia Gordan, and their colleagues, for which the editors are most grateful.
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