Are Israel’s attacks against Iran legal?

United States President Donald Trump is considering joining Israel in what it claims are its efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme, based on its stated belief that Iran is “very close” to developing a nuclear weapon.

Israel argues that it has carried out attacks on Iran’s military and nuclear sites over the past week in anticipation of an Iranian nuclear attack. But is this a valid justification?The United Nations Charter, which is the founding document for states’ rights since World War II, outlaws aggressive war, allowing military action only as self-defence.

Only the UN Security Council is empowered to decide if military action is justified, once countries have tried and failed to resolve their differences peacefully.

If a country is attacked while the UNSC deliberates, that country still has the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence”, however.

The question of the legality of Israel’s strikes on Iran, therefore, revolves around whether Israel – and any allies coming to its aid – can justify its attacks on Iran as “anticipatory” self-defence.“This is not a situation in which Israel is allegedly responding to an Iranian attack occurring now, whether directly or through proxies such as the Houthis,” wrote Marko Milanovic, a professor of public international law at Reading University who has served on the International Criminal Court (ICC), in the European Journal of International Law, which he edits.