Argachi: Iran may exercise its right to self-defense.
In an op-ed for Japan's Kyodo News, Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Argachi says Iran enjoys the right to legitimate self-defense and may exercise it.
He claims that the attacks by the US and Israel on Iran clearly violate the prohibition on the use of force and an attack on Iran's sovereignty, and should be judged according to the UN Charter, not political justifications after the fact.
Citing Articles 2(4) and 51, the ICJ ruling in Nicaragua and Resolution 3314, he warns that a pre-emptive war based on unilateral threat assessments would violate the prohibition of force - a view echoed by the head of the US branch of the International Law Association, which called the attack illegal.
According to him, attacks on schools, stadiums, civilian infrastructure and secure nuclear sites raise additional questions in the field of humanitarian law.