CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

Charter and apparently outwith its constraints. Arend and Beck 74 offer a representative
sample of such actions summarised in Table 2-4.
Year Theatre of action States taking action apparently in contravention of
88
Article 2(4)
1954 Guatemala United States of America
1956 Egypt (Suez Canal Zone) Israel, United Kingdom, France
1956 Hungary Soviet Union
1961 Cuba (Bay of Pigs) United States of America (Sponsorship)
1961 Goa India
1965 Dominican Republic United States of America
1968 Czechoslovakia Soviet Union (Warsaw Pact)
1973 Israel Syria, Egypt
1960-75 South Vietnam North Vietnam
1979 Kampuchea Vietnam
1979 Afghanistan Soviet Union
1979 Uganda Tanzania
1982 Falkland islands Argentina
1983 Grenada United States of America
1989 Panama United States of America
1990 Kuwait Iraq
Table 2-4 Representative Sample of Actions Apparently Contravening Article 2(4).
(Author’s table)
To this list might reasonably be added today, the 1999 NATO air attacks on Serbia and
subsequent move into Kosovo and the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Of course, any such list is controversial. Those listed in the third column would all
offer justifications for their action – and most often in terms of the exceptions to Article
2(4) – essentially a claim of ‘self defence.’ Arend and Beck make a case that ‘a putative
norm is a rule of international law only if it is authoritative and controlling.’ 75 If there
is widespread disregard for Article 2(4) in practice then it can be argued that this central
pillar of the legalist paradigm is no longer to be counted as an operative part of
international law at all. Of course, it can be argued that Article 2(4) is part of Treaty
Law not Customary International Law and so remains valid however often it may have
been breached, but whatever its formal standing, if it is widely ignored then both it and