Article 2(4) in fact says "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state". The UN Charter's the basis of international law; I don't know where your idea that what it proscribes is still legal comes from. Article 51 sets out the exemption for acting in self-defence, which would be nonsensical were invading other countries not even illegal. Articles 37 and 42 underline that a nation cannot use force without the say-so of the Security Council.

At the Nuremberg trials initiating a war of aggression was deemed "the supreme international crime". It's not just illegal; it's really really fucking illegal.

Right, but the way I read Article II is that it only applies if you're a UN member. If, prior its membership application in 2002, Switzerland had decided it had had enough of those uppity Lichtensteinians and decided to wipe the floor with them, this article wouldn't have applied, right? It would have been morally wrong, but not legally so.

Did Nuremburg define a "war of agression"? How strict is the definition?

I know none of this applied to Iraq, and I'm not trying to pick a fight about that war - I'm interested in the underlying law in a more abstract kind of way.

QUOTE:
Did Nuremburg define a "war of agression"? How strict is the definition?

I.e. is a so-called war of preemption or prevention automatically the same thing.

Yes. I mean, if some wars are "of aggression", presumably others are not, and there has to be some kind of dividing line.

One obvious dividing line between 1939 and 2003 is that the Americans weren't out to annex territory. But is that a sufficient distinction to have the war declared not one "of aggression"? I wouldn't have thought so, necessarily, but I've no clue.

"Annex territory" is a bit facile isn't it?

Um...I don't think so, no. Why?

Because it requires broadening the definitions of both "annex" and "territory"?

I'm not following you. What requires a broadened definition of "annex" and "territory"?

What I was saying was that when Germany invaded Poland it was more or less explicitly to change internationally reognized borders - to annex Danzig, the "corridor" and bits of Silesia. The war in Iraq may have been many ugly things, but it was not designed to increase the sovereign territory of the US by one centimetre.

The question I was asking was whether or not the Nuremburg defintion of "war of aggression" was such that a distinction of this sort would distinguish a war of aggression from a regular old war. Or does it defines a "war of agression" in such a way that all wars are wars of agression?

Sorry, I'm an idiot. I read what you wrote backwards I think. Something to the effect that as of 2003 the Americans were out to annex territory, which isn't what you wrote. I guess I'm used to hearing people treat the Iraq invasion as something akin to the German imperialism you were referring to.

I assume a "war of aggression" is meant to apply to any military endeavor not conducted in outright self-defense, i.e. when provoked first by some act that justifies declaring war.

Well, turns out good old wiki actually has a decent entry on "war of aggression", and it seems that territorial aggrandizement was at one point the key distinction. There is a more recent definition which does not use this as a distinction, but which is, however, seen as too weak to provide substantial grounds for indiviudal criminal prosecution.

Basically, a war of aggression is whatever the Security Council says it is. Which means no American, Russian, Chinese, French or British war is ever a war of aggression. Isn't that comforting?