Iran & International Law
Collective self-defence is not illegal
(An oil depot burns near Tehran after airstrikes on March 7th, 2026)
It has been twelve full days since Israel and the US launched large-scale air strikes against Iran. As we predicted, regime change remains a distant shore. While Iran’s military capabilities have been partly destroyed, they remain a credible threat to tankers in the straits of Hormuz,
The most urgent questions now seem to be: Will the US and its allies be able to defeat and deter Iranian attacks on vital oil, gas and other trade flows in and out of the Persian Gulf? If so, how quickly? If not, how will Iran use this leverage?
Yet instead of focusing on questions of military strategy or even tactical success, most recent commentary in Europe and North America seems to have focused on whether US and Israeli military action is even legal.
Sir Keir Starmer outlined the UK’s case for restraint on legal and strategic grounds, leading many observers to conclude that he viewed the strikes as unlawful. But the British prime minister did not make any such assertion directly.
While initially supportive of the strikes, Carney later declared them “prima facie (…) inconsistent with international law.” Macron said they were “outside international law.” Germany and Japan have not commented on their legality. But they have not endorsed the strikes either.
Writing in the New York Times (‘How Good Intentions Helped Pave Trump’s Road to Iran’, March 7th, 2026), Amanda Taub said the responsibility to protect (R2P) had provided a ‘humanitarian loophole’ which Israel and the Trump Administration were now using to justify strikes against Iran, which Taub believed to be illegal.
