Prof. Kraska has argued in his latest EJIL: Talk! article that the incident regarding the downing of a US drone by Iran happened due to the scarce knowledge of international law by an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander. While I do appreciate Prof. Kraska’s discretion in referring to US intelligence sources, on the other hand the US President himself openly provided to the media the same assessment.
I will now concentrate on some points raised by Prof. Kraska:
- The US counterattack was cancelled.
This observation implies by default and without any specifics that the action conducted by Iran was in fact an attack confirming the US policy on the equivalence of use of force with armed attack. One might disagree and follow the difference between the two as expressed by the ICJ in the Nicaragua case (para. 191). It is also difficult to understand this point of view, as the author did not state from the beginning that he was taking the US declarations on the position of the drone as a given fact. Even so, Iran’s declarations to the UN Security Council (UNSC) would have been worth mentioning to the reader for awareness purposes. In his letter, the Iranian Ambassador defines the US violation of his Country’s airspace as a “hostile act” to which Iran responded in self-defense. This is a shift on the interpretation of self-defense by Iran that actually aligns with the US view (use of force = self-defense). For more insights on the topic see here. Läs artikel
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