16 No. 76 JUSTICE One example of this principle involved Pakistan’s defense of its 1950 invasion of Kashmir as a legitimate exercise of the right of anticipatory self-defense against the possibility of an Indian invasion.29 Thus, Article 51 permits both actual self-defense in response to an armed attack, such as Hamas’s attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, or Jordan’s attacks against Israel on June 5, 1967, and for anticipatory selfdefense, when such an attack has not yet occurred but appears reasonably imminent. Therefore, Article 51 does not require the party invoking self-defense to wait until the first bomb has been dropped on its people or territory. The Attorney General of the United Kingdom agreed with this view when answering a question during a House of Lords debate in April 2004: It is argued by some that the language of Article 51 provides for a right of selfdefence only in response to an actual armed attack. However, it has been the consistent position of successive United Kingdom Governments over many years that the right of self-defence under international law includes the right to use force where an armed attack is imminent. It is clear that the language of Article 51 was not intended to create a new right of self-defence. Article 51 recognises the inherent right of self-defence that states enjoy under international law. That can be traced back to the “Caroline” incident in 1837.... It is not a new invention. The charter did not therefore affect the scope of the right of self-defence existing at that time in customary international law, which included the right to use force in anticipation of an imminent armed attack.30 Israel, therefore, had more than ample basis under both Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and the customary international law doctrine of anticipatory selfdefense to fire first and launch Operation Rising Lion in June 2025. To that end, Israel’s anticipatory self-defense in June 1967 provides a clear precedent for justifying the legality of Israel’s June 2025 action against Iran: The facts of the June 1967, “Six Day War” demonstrate that Israel reacted defensively against the threat and use of force against her by her Arab neighbors. This is indicated by the fact that Israel responded to Egypt's prior closure of the Straits of Tiran, its proclamation of a blockade of the Israeli port of Elath, and the manifest threat of the U.A.R.’s use of force inherent in its massing of troops in Sinai, coupled with its ejection of UNEF. It is indicated by the fact that, upon Israeli responsive action against the U.A.R., Jordan initiated hostilities against Israel. It is suggested as well by the fact that, despite the most intense efforts by the Arab states and their supporters, led by the Premier of the Soviet Union, to gain condemnation of Israel as an aggressor by the hospitable organs of the United Nations, those efforts were decisively defeated. The conclusion to which these facts lead is that the Israeli conquest of Arab and Arab-held territory was defensive rather than aggressive conquest.31 Finally, it must be noted that the concept of anticipatory self-defense has experienced a significant shift in recent years, with both the United States and the United Kingdom arguing for a more permissive approach to the use of anticipatory self-defense and a far broader standard for assessing imminence.32 The movement toward a more permissive interpretation of the concept of imminence gained momentum in 2012, when the former legal advisor to the UK Foreign Office published an influential article setting forth various principles governing the international law of self-defense. Regarding anticipatory self-defense and the concept of “imminence,” the author stated: 29. U.N.S.C. Rep. of the Security Council, Feb. 8, 1950, U.N. Doc. S/PV.464 (statement of Mohammed Zafrulla Khan, Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations). 30. “8.16 p.m. The Attorney-General (Lord Goldsmith),” UK PARLIAMENT, April 21, 2004, available at https:// publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldhansrd/ vo040421/text/40421-07.htm 31. S. Schwebel, “What Weight to Conquest?” 64 AM. J. INT’L L. 344, 346 (1970). 32. Monica Hakimi, “North Korea and the Law on Anticipatory Self-Defense,” EJIL: TALK! June 28, 2017, available at https://www.ejiltalk.org/north-korea-andthe-law-on-anticipatory-self-defense/
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