Iraq and the 800-Pound Gorilla Revisited: Good and Bad Faith, and Humanitarian Intervention

One of the leading justifications for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and removal of the Ba'ath Party from power was that Iraq had developed chemical and biological weapons, and was rapidly developing nuclear capability. The author's previous article, "Enforcing Arms Control Agreements by Military Force: Iraq and the 800-Pound Gorilla," argued that the invasion was lawful, even without Security Council authorization, by taking a new, injury-remedy approach to war theory. With no weapons of mass destruction yet found in Iraq, new justifications must be found to legitimate the invasion. The author revisits the injury-remedy approach, incorporating good and bad faith, and a tort-based approach to humanitarian intervention.