Donald Trump made a big impression in his first speech to the United Nations (UN) general assembly on September 19, 2017, presenting sovereignty as an unsurpassable horizon for international relations. However, his decision to eliminate Iranian general Ghassem Soleimani on January 2 in Baghdad has stalled that of Iraq. On Monday, January 6, the US administration also did not hesitate to breach its obligations as host country to the UN headquarters, by refusing a visa to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
This breach of international law, which occurs after the assassination of a foreign dignitary, as well as threats of “disproportionate” reprisals against Iran in the event of a response or even casualness towards Congress: all of this the American President’s assault on legal standards, including those of his own country. These attacks are part of a story, that of the post-September 11 era linked to "The war on terror" driven by the United States since 2001. "Where are the lawyers for the White House, the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the National Security Council? " asked Jan. 5 on her Twitter account Oona Hathaway, a specialist in international law at Yale.
That any of this has to be said suggests just how insane this situation has become. Where are the White House, DoJ,… https://t.co/vT3VRIGvAk
In line with "targeted executions"
The bombing that claimed the life of Ghassem Soleimani is included in the chapter on "Targeted executions", inaugurated in Yemen on November 3, 2002. A militia member of the local branch of the terrorist nebula Al-Qaida had been killed for his participation in an attack on an American warship in the port of Aden, two years earlier. "Assassinations" have in principle been prohibited since a presidential decree of 1976, following the work of a Senate commission.
The administration of Barack Obama, however a lawyer by training, practiced these "Targeted executions" on an industrial scale. More than 1,000 suspected jihadists have been killed in Yemen alone in 184 strikes in eight years, according to the New America think tank counterterrorism program. This administration had put forward three elements to legitimize them: the fact that they concerned non-state actors, that they were "Preventive" and that they came under "Self defense."
