Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, spoke with Sputnik Radio's Loud & Clear about the potential legal justifications for the "outright aggression" of the joint US-UK-France missile strikes on Syria on April 13.
"There were two justifications given for what is clearly outright aggression. Defense Secretary James Mattis said it's vital national security interests — well, that's not a legal argument," Boyle said, chuckling.
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"Regretfully, the magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, [former President Barack] Obama made the exact same argument too, to show you how badly off we really are. The attack clearly violated the United Nations charter. It violated the Nuremberg charter, ‘Judgement and Principles.' It was a Nuremberg crime against peace. It was an act of aggression, as defined by the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court."
"And it violated the war powers clause of the United States Constitution and Congress' own War Powers Resolution of 1973," the professor noted.
"The British government has tried to defend this under the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, which is completely bogus," he said.
The International Court of Justice has previously considered this argument and rejected it, Boyle noted while referring listeners to his book that explains why this argument fails, "Destroying Libya and World Order: The Three-Decade US Campaign to Terminate the Qaddafi Revolution."
"I have a whole chapter debunking that argument," he said.
According to the University of Illinois, Boyle drafted the legislation for the domestic implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention, "known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the US Congress and signed into law by President George HW Bush."
Damascus and Moscow have been extremely skeptical about the claim of chemical weapons being used in Douma, which spurred the West to cry out that military strikes were needed as a humanitarian intervention and to "send a message" to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that the use of chemical weapons wouldn't be tolerated.
On Monday, an American journalist reported from Syria to share his "exclusive" findings after speaking with residents of Douma: nobody saw or heard a chemical attack take place. Instead, people who have lived in Douma the past 15 years believe the whole incident was staged by terrorists to incite Western powers to respond with military action against the Syrian Arab Army, thus providing cover for the terrorists to escape.
"When I asked them what they thought the chemical attack was, they told me — all of them — it was staged by the rebels who were occupying the town at that time. They said it was a fabrication or a hoax," OAN's Pearson Sharp reported.
