THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT’S LEGAL POSITION

MILITARY action against Syria will be legal even if Britain fails to get a fresh UN resolution, the Government has claimed.

In a highly unusual move, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, ordered the release of a brief summary of the Government’s ‘legal position’ for launching retaliatory strikes against Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The document is effectively a summary of the advice drawn up for the Cabinet by the Attorney General Dominic Grieve.

Former UN deputy secretary general Lord Malloch-Brown has warned that the legal case set out in the 660-word document was ‘a little tenuous’. Lord Malloch-Brown, who served as a minister in the last Labour government, said it was not clear that action in Syria would save lives – a key test in international law for using force on humanitarian grounds.

Other experts have warned the Government’s case was ‘extremely controversial’.

Mr Cameron told MPs the ‘excellent’ advice made it clear that intervention on humanitarian grounds would be legal even if, as expected, Russia vetoes a new resolution Britain is seeking at the UN Security Council condemning the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and giving authority for the world to use ‘all necessary measures to protect civilians.’

The document says that without the UN resolution, three key tests would have to be met. There has to be ‘convincing evidence’ of ‘extreme humanitarian distress.’

It must be ‘objectively clear that there is no practicable alternative to the use of force if lives are to be saved’. And the use of force must be ‘necessary and proportionate’ and ‘strictly limited in time and scope’. The document says that ‘all three conditions would clearly be met in this case’ as the Assad regime had been ‘killing its people for two years’ and had repeatedly used chemical weapons, diplomacy had failed and the planned strikes were limited to ‘averting a humanitarian catastrophe’.

But Michael Caplan, QC, said ‘all possible avenues’ at the UN must first be explored before any strikes, if Russia vetoes the Security Council resolution. This could include a rare referral to full UN General Assembly to provide greater legal cover, he said.