Contemporaq International Legal Issues: Introduction

• Author: by Captain Stephen J. Kaczynski
• Pages: 01

The firit half of the decade of the 1980s has already wtneised myriad international episodes and cnses many of ahich were ar-tended by international legal issues From the clash of arms of the South Arlantic to the massacres of the Middle East. to the cnm of conscience occasioned by the American Bishops pastoral letter on nuclear weapons, to the destrucrion of an unarmed c~vilian airher, events have caused international lawyers of ail persuasmna to attempt to apply, or revise, the customary international Ian norms to the challenges af the 1980s This issue of theMilifury Lax Ret,im IS

dedicated to a discussion of sereral of those events and issues accom~ panling them.

On 2 April 1982, the armed forces of Argentina mtaded the Faik-land Islands of the South Atlantic and o\erran a smali British garrison that had been present in that colonial outpost of the Empire Foilowing failed mediation by the United States and the United h'a[ions Secretay-General, Great Britain lay seige to and retook the Islands by force of arms. The Organization of American States condemned the British attack. the Llmted States supported it. The relative rlrgentine and British claims to the Falklands and the propriery of the use of force to resolve rhe conflict are discussed m the lead article.

As the Falklands conflict subsided from the international public eye, attention was focused upon the Middle East, where. m the late5t episode of violence that plagued that troubled region. the Israeli Defense Forces, on 6 June 1982, invaded Lebanon and pressed their advance to Chnstian-controlled East Beirut. Following a seige and bombardment of West Beirut, an agreement to ailow for the protected evacuation of troops of the Syrian and Palestine Liber-ation Organization armies was reached. A multinational force. consisting of American, French. and Italian troops, semed as a buffer between the Israelis and Christians m East Beirut and the exiting Syrians and Palestinians in West Beirut When the exodus had been

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completed the force departed Lebanon. Within a neek of the departure of the last elements of the farce, however. reports began tu reach the press of a massacre of Palestinians in the refugee campi of Shatila and Sabra No one accused the Israelis of perpetrating rhe massacre, get it was beyond doubt that the Israeli command had allowed Christian Phalange militia into the camps in the frenzied aftermath of the assassmation of the Lebanese Christian Prwdent Bash Gamayel...