Discussion On The United States Use Of Force On The International Law

On the basis of the general principle about the prohibition of the use of force and the exception rules of the international law theory provided by the UN Charter, this paper examines the theory and practice of American several large-scale use of force since World War II.The first part discusses the fundamental theory of the international law on the prohibition of the use of force. This part first briefly introduces the establishment and connotation of the general principle about the prohibition of the use of force provided by Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter, then in the light of the Charter framework outlines the exception principles of the prohibition of the use of force - lawful use of force under specific circumstances: authorized by the UN Security Council to use force, the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense stated in Article 51 of the UN Charter.The second part focuses on the United States invoking being authorized by the Security Council of the use of force. On the basis of the international law about the theory of the Security Council authorizing the use of force, and referring to the Korean War(1950) and Iraqi Desert Storm (1991), this part specifically analyzes the practice of the United States invoking being authorized by the Council to use force; and combining Iraq Operation Desert Fox(1998), as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom(2003), analyzes that the United States invoked the Council ambiguous authorization theory and the military action, then discusses whether these actions conform to the legitimacy of the principle of the UN Security Council authorizing the use of force under the UN Charter.The third part mainly discusses one of the legitimate uses of force allowed by the UN Charter—to self-defense theory and doctrine of international law, on the basis of this, analyzing and discussing the United States invoking collective self-defense to launch the Korean War(1950)and the Vietnam War(1961) under international law.Then discusses the problems of the United States' use of force in the preventive self-defense, the United States invoked preventive self-defense and launched Operation Enduring Freedom to Afghanistan(2001) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003), analyzing whether it is consistent with the lawful use of force in self-defense under the international law.Part four is the conclusion. This part sums up the situation and summarizes in the United States use of the force since World War II, and then comes to the conclusion: practice and theory proved that there still isn't a preferable alternative to the current legal regime governing the use of force. The U.S. arguments are not characterized by any coherent limiting principle to protect the general prohibition on the use of force. Unilateral use of force by the United States invoked the theory would have a negative impact on prohibition the use of force of the international law rules.