end of list<\/span><\/section>\nThe scholars warned that the US-Israeli campaign, which began on February 28, was launched without UN Security Council authorisation and without credible evidence of an imminent Iranian threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cForce against another state is\u00a0only permitted\u00a0in self-defense against an actual or imminent armed attack or where authorized by the UN Security Council. The Security Council did not authorize the attack. Iran did not attack Israel or the United States,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n
The experts\u2019 concerns fall into four areas: the legality of the decision to go to war; the conduct of hostilities; threatening rhetoric from senior officials; and what they describe as the dismantling of civilian protection structures inside the US government under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s \u201cgloves off\u201d approach to warfare.<\/p>\n
The scholars highlighted a strike on a primary school in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war that killed at least 175 people, most of them children, as well as attacks on hospitals, water plants and energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seriously concerned about strikes that have hit schools, health facilities, and homes,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Alarming disrespect\u2019 for international law<\/h2>\n
The letter also condemned public statements by senior US officials, including President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
In particular, it noted a mid-March comment from Trump where he said the US may conduct strikes on Iran \u201cjust for fun\u201d. It also cited comments from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth from early March in which he said the US does not fight with \u201cstupid rules \u2060of engagement\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic statements by senior officials indicate an alarming disrespect for the rules of international humanitarian law accepted by states, and which protect both civilians and members of the armed forces,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n
It also added that the war is costing US taxpayers up to $2bn a day.<\/p>\n
The letter was co-authored by prominent legal scholars including Yale Law School\u2019s Oona Hathaway and Harold Koh, Philip Alston of NYU, and former Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth.<\/p>\n
The experts said that due to their connection to the US, their main focus was on the conduct of that government, but they \u201cremain concerned about the risk of atrocities across the region\u201d.<\/p>\n
They also highlighted the \u201cimportance of equal application of international law to all, including countries that hold themselves out as global leaders\u201d, expressing concern about the harm this war is doing to the international legal order and the system of international law.<\/p>\n
The signatories are urging Washington to change course, writing: \u201cWe urge US government officials to uphold the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and human rights law at all times, and to publicly make clear US commitment to and respect for norms of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United States-based scholars sign open letter raising concerns about conduct, rhetoric during US-Israeli war on Iran. Published On 3 Apr 20263 Apr 2026 More than 100 United States-based international law experts have signed an open letter condemning US and Israeli military strikes on Iran as a violation of the United Nations Charter and potentially amounting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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