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STRIKING A GROTIAN MOMENT: HOW THE SYRIA…, 19 Chi. J. Int’l L. 586
19 Chi. J. Int’l L. 586
Chicago Journal of International Law
Winter, 2019
Article
Michael P. Scharfa1
Copyright © 2019 by the Chicago Journal of International Law, The University of Chicago Law School;
Michael P. Scharf
STRIKING A GROTIAN MOMENT: HOW THE SYRIA
AIRSTRIKES CHANGED INTERNATIONAL LAW RELATING
TO HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Abstract
In the years since the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes on Serbia to prevent ethnic cleansing
of the Kosovar Albanians, international law has been moving in fits and starts toward recognition of a limited
right of humanitarian intervention in the absence of United Nations Security Council approval. But all the
ingredients necessary for the crystallization of customary international law were not present until the April 14,
2018 United States/French/United Kingdom airstrikes on Syrian chemical weapons facilities. This Article
examines the distinctive circumstances of the April 2018 airstrikes, including the context of a crisis of historic
proportions, the focus on preventing the use of chemical weapons, the collectivity of the action taken, the
limited targets and collateral damage, the explicit invocation of humanitarian intervention by the U.K. as the
legal justification, and the U.S.’s apparent adoption of that justification. It explores whether these factors have
rendered the April 2018 airstrikes a transformative event that may have changed international law concerning
humanitarian intervention.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
588
II. Background on the Syrian Airstrikes
590
A. President Obama Draws a Red Line
590
B. The April 6, 2017 Unilateral Airstrikes
591
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STRIKING A GROTIAN MOMENT: HOW THE SYRIA…, 19 Chi. J. Int’l L. 586
C. The April 14, 2018 Multilateral Airstrikes
592
III. The Concept of Accelerated Formation of Customary International Law
593
IV. The Changing Law of Humanitarian Intervention
595
A. Historic Status of Humanitarian Intervention
595
B. The 1999 NATO Intervention
596
C. Development of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine
598
D. Was the International Reaction to the NATO Intervention a Grotian Moment?
601
E. Use of Force Against ISIS on Mount Sinjar
603
V. Did the 2018 Syrian Airstrikes Constitute a Grotian Moment?
605
A. Articulation of a Clear Legal Rationale
605
B. The Response of the International Community
608
VI. Conclusion
612
*588 I. INTRODUCTION
Since 2011, Syria has been engulfed in a protracted civil war that began as part of the wave of Arab Spring
protests against Middle East tyrants.1 The Syrian conflict has seen the rise and fall of the Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization,2 the largest refugee migration since World War II,3 and the repeated use
of chemical weapons against a civilian population. With all that, Syria has become a dynamic laboratory for the
creation of new international law.
Elsewhere, this author has explored how the use of force by the U.S. and its allies against ISIS in Syria has
fundamentally changed the international law of self-defense against non-state actors.4 This Article, in turn,
examines whether the airstrikes against Syria on April 14, 2018 may have crystallized an emerging customary
norm of humanitarian intervention, thereby representing a historic development in international law.5
The U.S., France, and the U.K. have said that they launched the April 2018 airstrikes to prevent the Assad
regime from continuing to use chemical weapons against the Syrian population.6 Before the Syrian airstrikes,
most countries and experts had taken the position that there was no international law right of humanitarian
intervention under customary international law or the U.N. Charter, except when authorized by the Security
Council.7 As detailed in this Article, however, the three countries claimed a right of humanitarian intervention,
and the international response to the April 2018 Syria airstrikes has been overwhelmingly supportive.
Something is changing.
*589 What to make of this change? Was this just a case where international politics aligned against a rogue
regime, or did the April 2018 airstrikes constitute a transformative event in customary international and the
interpretation of the U.N. Charter? Some scholars have characterized such events as “International
Constitutional Moments.”8 But others, including this author, prefer to use the label “Grotian Moment,” a term
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named for Hugo Grotius, the 15th Century Dutch scholar and diplomat whose masterpiece De Jure Belli ac
Pacis helped marshal in the modern system of international law.9 This Article examines whether the airstrikes
against Syria in April 2018 in response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons are one of these
so-called Grotian Moments, marking a rapid change in customary international law and in the interpretation of
the U.N. Charter concerning the right to use force for humanitarian intervention in the absence of Security
Council authorization.
The Article begins by setting forth the background of the 2018 airstrikes. Next, it discusses the principles and
process of customary international law formation and the phenomenon of accelerated development of
customary international law. This is followed by an examination of the evolving view of humanitarian
intervention, starting with the 1999 NATO airstrikes. Finally, the Article explores the unique aspects of the
Syrian airstrikes, including the context of a crisis of historic proportions, the focus on preventing the use of
chemical weapons, the collectivity of the action taken, the limited targets and collateral damage, the explicit
invocation of humanitarian intervention by the U.K. as the legal justification, and the U.S.’s apparent adoption
of that justification. It concludes that these factors may have rendered the April 14, 2018 airstrikes a
transformative event that has changed international law concerning humanitarian intervention.
*590 II. BACKGROUND ON THE SYRIAN AIRSTRIKES
A. President Obama Draws a Red Line
Since the civil war in Syria began in 2011, Syria has presented the international community with monumental
challenges to international peace and security.10 Responding to the crisis has been complicated by the unique
geopolitical situation. Dating back to the 1970s, Russia has been a close ally of the Assad regime, which allows
Russia to keep its only naval base outside the former Soviet Union at the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus.11
As such, Russia has vetoed Security Council resolutions condemning Assad’s harsh actions against the civilian
population, blocked the Security Council from authorizing investigations into Syria’s use of chemical weapons,
and prevented the Security Council from referring the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC).12
In reaction to reports that the Assad regime had amassed chemical weapons, on August 20, 2012, U.S. President
Barack Obama declared that Syria’s use of chemical weapons would be a “red line.”13 The inference was that if
the Assad regime deployed the internationally banned weapons it would trigger an American military response.
He reiterated this threat on several occasions in the following months.14 Then on August 21, 2013, the Assad
regime used chemical weapons on a large scale in the opposition-held Ghouta area of Damascus, causing 1,400
civilian casualties.15
In response, President Obama tried and ultimately failed to gain support from Congress and international allies
to launch a narrowly tailored attack on Syria.16 At the time, polls revealed that only 36 percent of Americans
favored the U.S. taking military action to prevent Syria’s chemical weapons use, while 51 *591 percent of those
surveyed opposed such military action.17 Lacking congressional and popular support, the Obama administration
never took military action. Rather, it accepted a Russian-brokered deal under which the Assad regime agreed to
give up its chemical weapons and submit to international inspections.18
B. The April 6, 2017 Unilateral Airstrikes
It soon became clear that the Russian-brokered deal had failed to prevent Syrian possession and use of chemical
weapons. On April 7, 2017, four months after President Donald Trump entered office, the U.S. fired fifty-nine
Tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat Airfield in Syria. President Trump said the airstrike was conducted in
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response to the Assad regime’s use of sarin gas, a chemical weapon, on the town of Khan Sheikhoun–an attack
that killed seventy-two people, including a number of children, on April 4.19 Shayrat Airfield was targeted
because it had been used to store chemical weapons and aircraft employed in the April 4 attack.20
The United States acted alone, and President Trump did not articulate a legal rationale for the airstrikes, but said
that “[i]t is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of
deadly chemical weapons.”21 U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki R. Haley said that the U.S. was “justified” in
striking the airbase as “a very measured step” and warned that the U.S. was “prepared to do more.” 22
Despite the lack of a stated legal justification, many of America’s allies defended the missile strikes. The British
Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Fallon, said “we fully support this strike, it was limited, it was
appropriate, and it was designed to target the aircraft and the equipment that the United States believe were used
in the chemical attack and to deter President Assad from carrying out future chemical attacks.”23 The European
Union was similarly supportive, saying *592 that Syria’s use of chemical weapons cannot go unanswered.24 In
the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey said they supported the missile strikes as a “necessary and
appropriate response.”25
Of all the states in the world, only Russia, Iran, Bolivia, and Syria opposed the airstrikes. Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov called the strikes “an act of aggression under a completely invented pretext.”26
C. The April 14, 2018 Multilateral Airstrikes
In 2018, with Russia’s assistance, the Assad regime began the final push to end its civil war, using
overwhelming force to punish local populations where insurgents remained active.27 On April 7, 2018, an attack
using chlorine gas in the eastern Damascus suburb of Douma killed more than eighty civilians. Believing
Assad’s forces to be responsible, on April 14, 2018, the U.S., France, and the U.K. together launched another
round of missile strikes against Syria.
“The nations of Britain, France and the United States of America have marshalled their righteous power against
barbarism and brutality,” President Trump said in an address from the White House announcing the military
action.28 “The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread, and
use of chemical weapons,” he said.29 He added, “[w]e are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian
regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.”30
One hundred three missiles were fired from a variety of naval vessels and jets–about double what was launched
in April 2017.31 The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, said the targets were
“specifically associated” with Syria’s chemical weapons program.32 They included a scientific research facility
in Damascus, a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs, and a chemical weapons equipment storage
site and command post near Homs.33 *593 “This is going to set the Syrian chemical weapons program back for
years,” Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, a director of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.34
Lamenting that the international investigators had just arrived in Douma to begin their examination of the
suspected use of chemical weapons there, Russia called the airstrikes “an act of aggression” and a “violation of
the U.N. Charter and the norms and principles of international law.”35 But a Russian-sponsored Security Council
resolution that would have condemned the attack was soundly defeated by a vote of three in favor, eight against,
and four abstentions.36 Both inside and outside the Security Council, the international reaction to the airstrikes
reflected broad support.37
III. THE CONCEPT OF ACCELERATED FORMATION OF CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW
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Under the conventional view of international law, a state can use military force in another state’s territory only
in three situations: (1) with the latter’s consent, (2) with Security Council authorization, or (3) when acting in
self-defense against an armed attack.38 None of these exceptions was applicable to the April 14, 2018 airstrikes
on Syria.
The question this Article addresses is whether the April 2018 airstrikes have crystallized a fourth situation in
which force is allowed, namely to respond to and prevent future use of chemical weapons against civilians when
the Security Council is blocked from authorizing humanitarian intervention by a Permanent Member’s veto. If
this right now exists under customary international law, then such humanitarian intervention would not be in
violation of Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, which only prohibits the use of force that is “against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any state” and “inconsistent with the *594 Purposes of the United
Nations.”39 Humanitarian intervention in response to use of chemical weapons is not seeking to threaten the
integrity of a state nor bring about political change, but only to save lives and enforce the global ban on
chemical weapons.40
In the 1986 Nicaragua Case, the International Court of Justice observed that “[r]eliance by a State on a novel
right or an unprecedented exception to the principle [of non-intervention] might, if shared in principle by other
States, tend toward a modification of customary international law.”41 The formation of customary international
law has been described as a process of continuous claim and response.42 In the case of the 2018 airstrikes, the
claim was explicit. The U.S., France, and U.K. articulated a right to humanitarian intervention in the face of
Syria’s use of chemical weapons against civilians. And the claim was not merely a threat, but the actual
deployment of force. As such, the three states acted as custom pioneers–the first states to initiate a practice
hoping that it will be accepted as a new rule of customary international law by the international community.
Custom pioneers have no guarantee that their action will in fact lead to the formation of a binding custom.
Sometimes, as here, there is widespread support for the claim, which can foster crystallization of the new rule.
Other times, there is widespread condemnation, which would set back the formation of the new rule. And often
there is a great deal of silence, which can be interpreted as either acquiescence or indifference.43 Just “as pearls
are produced by the irritant of a piece of grit entering an oyster’s shell,” so the claims and responses of states
(including their silence) “produce the pearl–so to speak– of customary law.”44 Usually this claim and response
process takes decades or even centuries to come to fruition,45 but periodically world events act as accelerating
agents that enable customary international law to develop quite rapidly.46
*595 The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law describes two scenarios where the world has
witnessed the accelerated formation of customary international law in the past.47 First, there are situations
involving “the urgency of coping with new developments of technology, such as, for instance, drilling
technology as regards the rules on the continental shelf, or space technology as regards the rule on the freedom
of extra-atmospheric space.”48 Second, there are situations involving “the urgency of coping with widespread
sentiments of moral outrage regarding crimes committed in conflicts such as those in Rwanda and Yugoslavia
that brought about the rapid formation of a set of customary rules concerning crimes committed in internal
conflicts.”49 This author has previously explored these scenarios in a book-length treatment.50
As described below, the 2018 airstrikes fall within both scenarios. They were in response to the use of (1)
unusual weapons and novel delivery systems, and (2) crimes against humanity. Yet, one must approach the
concept of accelerated formation of customary international law with caution. As one author warns, “[i]t is
always easy, at times of great international turmoil, to spot a turning point that is not there.”51 With this
admonition in mind, the next Sections examine whether the customary international law governing use of force
for humanitarian reasons has undergone rapid transformation in light of the 2018 allied airstrikes against Syria.
IV. THE CHANGING LAW OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
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A. Historic Status of Humanitarian Intervention
Since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, state sovereignty has been regarded as the fundamental paradigm of
international law. Leading scholars have described the prohibition of the threat or use of force in Article 2(4) of
the U.N. Charter as “the corner-stone of the Charter system.”52 This prohibition goes hand in hand *596 with the
nonintervention principle enshrined in Article 2(7) of the U.N. Charter, which prohibits coercive intervention
into the exclusively domestic affairs of a state.53
As discussed above, there are only three exceptions to the prohibition against the use of force enumerated in the
U.N. Charter.54 The first covers situations that qualify as self-defense in the face of an armed attack under
Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. The second encompasses situations where the use of force has been authorized
by the Security Council under Article 42 of the U.N. Charter in response to a threat to the peace, a breach of the
peace, or an act of aggression. And the third involves situations where the territorial state has consented to the
use of force within its borders.
In the last twenty years, the Security Council has significantly broadened what it considers to qualify as a threat
to the peace. The Security Council found threats to the peace in situations involving widespread human rights
violations and humanitarian atrocities in Southern Rhodesia (1969), South Africa (1977), Somalia (1992),
Rwanda (1994), East Timor (1999), Kosovo (1999), and Libya (2011). In 1992, the president of the Security
Council acknowledged this conceptual shift, stating “the mere absence of war and military conflict among
States does not itself ensure international peace and security; rather, intrastate humanitarian situations can also
become threats to peace and security.”55 Yet, Security Council action is often thwarted by the threat or use of the
veto by its Permanent Members, and consequently, the Security Council has failed to authorize humanitarian
intervention in situations such as Rwanda in 1994, where 500,000 to a million deaths would likely have been
prevented had the Security Council acted.56
B. The 1999 NATO Intervention
The Kosovo crisis in 1998-1999 emerged out of the same historic backdrop of ethnic tensions that had engulfed
the former Yugoslavia in a brutal ethnic conflict from 1991 to 1995. Kosovo was a region of Serbia where Serbs
constituted a minority and Albanian Muslims constituted the majority of the *597 population.57 In 1998, Serbian
federal military and security forces began to systematically attack the Albanian population, which fled to the
mountains for refuge in the face of widespread ethnic cleansing.58
In Resolution 1203 of October 24, 1998, the Security Council determined that the Kosovo situation constituted
a threat to the peace; insisted upon the cessation of hostilities, withdrawal of certain forces and the commitment
of the parties to seek a political resolution; and authorized an OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission and a NATO
Air Verification Mission to monitor compliance with the provisional measures required under Resolution
1199.59 But the Security Council did not authorize the use of force, and Russia made it clear that it would veto
any attempt to do so.
When the peace negotiations stalled and the brutalities continued, in March 1999 NATO decided to intervene
with airstrikes against Serbian government targets in Belgrade and throughout the country.60 The airstrikes
involved 912 aircraft, which flew a total of 37,225 bombing missions in an effort to induce a diplomatic
resolution.61 The NATO countries had humanitarian motives; there were no strategic or material interests of
NATO nations in Serbia.62 After seventy-eight days, the NATO bombing campaign ultimately convinced Serbia
to sign an agreement providing autonomy for Kosovo under the temporary administration of the United Nations
and protection of NATO forces. Subsequently, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999,
which could be interpreted as providing a sort of after-the-fact ratification of the NATO intervention.63
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While their interests were purely humanitarian, the U.S. and U.K. declined to provide a legal rationale based on
humanitarian intervention. Instead, they justified their actions on moral necessity. The reason for this was
explained by Michael Matheson, the acting legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State at the time of the
intervention, in the following terms:
About six months before the actual conflict, at the time when NATO was considering giving an
order to threaten the use of force, the political community of NATO got together and had a
discussion about what the basis *598 of such threat of force would be. At the end of the
discussion, it was clear that there was no common agreement on what might be the justification.
There were some NATO members who were prepared to base it on a new doctrine of
humanitarian intervention; but most members of the NATO Council were reluctant to adopt a
relatively open-ended new doctrine. So at the end of that week, the NATO political community
said, here is a list of all of the important reasons why it is necessary for us to threaten the use of
force. And at the bottom, it said that under these unique circumstances, we think such actions
would be legitimate. There was deliberate evasion of making a “legal” assertion.
And this same process occurred in the U.S. Government. There were some who wanted to
articulate that humanitarian intervention in now the basis for U.S. action. There was another
theory from the Department of Defense, which wanted to adopt sort of an expanded idea of
self-defense based on the general interest of the United States in the region; but on reflection,
nobody was really prepared to throw all the eggs into either of those baskets. So we ended up with
a formulation similar to that of NATO, where we listed all of the reasons why we were taking
action and, in the end, mumbled something about its being justifiable and legitimate but not a
precedent.64
When the principal state actors assert that their actions are sui generis and not intended to constitute precedent,
this does not create a favorable climate for the cultivation of a new rule of customary international law.65 As
such, the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, chaired by the former chief prosecutor of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Richard Goldstone, characterized the 1999 NATO
intervention as “illegal but legitimate.”66
C. Development of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine
In the aftermath of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, the issue of humanitarian intervention emerged as an
important aspect of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s reform agenda at the United Nations. When Annan
delivered his annual report to the U.N. General Assembly later that year, he presented in stark terms the
dilemma facing the international community with respect to the idea of unauthorized humanitarian intervention:
To those for whom the greatest threat to the future of international order is the use of force in the
absence of a Security Council mandate, one might ask– not in the context of Kosovo–but in the
context of Rwanda: If, in *599 those dark days and hours leading up to the genocide, a coalition of
States had been prepared to act in defense of the Tutsi population, but did not receive prompt
Council authorization, should such a coalition have stood aside and allowed the horror to unfold?67
In his Millennium Report to the General Assembly in 2000, Annan posed a similar question: “If humanitarian
intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a
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Srebrenica–to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common
humanity?”68
Rising to the challenge posed by the Secretary-General’s appeal, the government of Canada established the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which in December 2001 submitted
its report to Secretary-General Annan. The ICISS report, entitled The Responsibility to Protect,69 contained two
important innovations. The first was its suggestion that the debate be shifted from focusing on the right to
intervene to the responsibility to protect victims of serious human rights violations–a concept that comprises
prevention, reaction, and post-conflict support.70 The second was its assertion that sovereignty implies a
responsibility of the state to protect its citizens from human rights violations, and when the state is unable or
unwilling to fulfill its sovereign responsibility, “it becomes the responsibility of the international community to
act in its place.”71
Drawing from principles of “just war” theory,72 the ICISS Report sets forth criteria for deciding when military
humanitarian intervention is warranted. According to the ICISS, such action should only be employed in
extreme cases of large-scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing and where (1) the action is motivated by the “right
intention”; (2) the action is a “last resort”; (3) the action is proportional to the threat; and (4) the action carries
with it a reasonable chance of ending the suffering.73
On the most important question of who can authorize humanitarian intervention, the ICISS Report emphasizes
the primary role of the Security Council. However, should the Security Council fail to react (as when it is
paralyzed *600 by a Permanent Member’s veto), the report states that action by the General Assembly under the
Uniting for Peace Resolution74 is a possible alternative that would “provide a high degree of legitimacy for an
intervention.”75
The report also mentions the possibility of action by regional organizations, while pointing out that the U.N.
Charter requires that they act with authorization of the Security Council.76 Following the reference to the
Security Council, however, the ICISS Report refers to cases in which regional organizations have carried out an
intervention and only subsequently sought the approval of the Security Council, concluding that “there may be
certain leeway for future action in this regard.”77
As to whether individual states or regional organizations can ever legally act without Security Council
authorization, the report is intentionally ambiguous. While observing the lack of a global consensus on the
issue, the report avoids deeming such interventions illegal.78 Further, the report points out that there will be
damage to the international order if the Security Council is bypassed, but also emphasizes that there will be
“damage to that order if human beings are slaughtered while the Security Council stands by.”79 The ICISS finds
it intolerable that “one veto can override the rest of humanity on matters of grave humanitarian concern.”80
Thus, the ICISS urges the permanent members of the Security Council to refrain from using the veto in cases of
genocide and large-scale human rights abuses, and cautions that coalitions might take action if the Council fails
to live up to its responsibility.81
*601 D. Was the International Reaction to the NATO Intervention a Grotian Moment?
In the case of the 1999 NATO intervention in Serbia, a major use of armed force had taken place for
humanitarian purposes without Security Council authorization but with widespread support by the international
community. According to one scholar, the NATO intervention was “a case that expanded, rather than breached,
the law, similar to the Truman proclamation about the Continental Shelf.”82 Others have described the NATO
intervention as “a watershed event” and “an important transition point in the shift from one international order
to the next.”83
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Moreover, the NATO intervention led to the ICISS’s articulation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
doctrine, a concept that has been described as the “most dramatic normative development of our time”84 and a
“revolution in consciousness in international affairs.”85 The 2001 ICISS Report characterized the responsibility
to protect as an emerging principle of customary international law,86 and the 2004 High-level Panel Report
described it as an “emerging norm,”87 an assessment shared by the Secretary-General.88 The R2P Doctrine was
then unanimously endorsed at the 2005 World Summit by the heads of state and government of every U.N.
member state, and later by the United Nations Security Council. Based on these developments, in 2007
Professor Ved Nanda of Denver University School of Law concluded that a government can no longer “hide
behind the shield of sovereignty, claiming non-intervention by other States in its internal affairs, if it fails to
protect the people under its jurisdiction from massive violations of human rights.”89
*602 Yet, two roadblocks prevented humanitarian intervention outside the framework of the U.N. from actually
ripening into a norm of customary international law following the 1999 NATO intervention and promulgation
of the R2P Doctrine. The first impediment was the ambiguity of the initial manifestation of opinio juris that
accompanied the acts of the NATO states. The participating NATO states were not comfortable with the idea
that the bombing campaign would create a new rule of customary international law justifying a broad notion of
unilateral humanitarian intervention. Thus, in July 1999, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stressed
that the air strikes were a “unique situation sui generis in the region of the Balkans,” concluding that it was
important “not to overdraw the various lessons that come out of it.”90 U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair likewise
emphasized the exceptional nature of the Kosovo operation.91
The second obstruction had to do with the unfortunate timing of the ICISS Report. Shortly after the Report was
issued, in March 2003, the United States and a “coalition of the willing” invaded Iraq without Security Council
authorization in part to prevent Iraq from deploying weapons of mass destruction and in part in response to
Saddam Hussein’s historic record of atrocities against Iraq’s Kurdish and Shi’ite populations.92 The action was
controversial and widely unpopular across the globe, and prompted the U.N. Secretary-General to create
