A Dutch lawyer working at the Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Estonia has noted that the April 14 airstrikes against Syria by the US, UK and France are in violation of international law.
Lieutenant Colonel Kris van der Meij is part of a team working to evaluate how cyber conflict and international law intersect. The cooperative is an accredited NATO Center of Excellence. Van der
Meij previously worked as a legal adviser for the First German-Netherlands Corps, one of NATO's High Readiness Forces, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
According to Van der Meij, the ‘humanitarian intervention' principle — which the US, UK and France used to justify bombing locations claimed to be part of Syria's chemical weapons infrastructure — is not a valid reason for aggression.
Russia previously noted that the airstrikes were in violation of international law. During a meeting earlier this month with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), ambassador to the UN for Russia Vladimir Safronkov called the attacks a “flagrant violation of international law and an act of aggression.”
As detailed by Van der Meij, a country can legally take military action against another country only to defend itself, or by means of a UNSC resolution or after a country requests intervention.
“The fourth option sometimes mentioned is this humanitarian intervention, like they did in Libya for example when Gaddafi was slaughtering his own people,”…
