Abstract:

The events of September 11 and the subsequent war against Afghanistan, which started less than a month later, raised important legal issues of international law. On the one hand, they raised the issue of criminal legal responsibility, the issues associated with legally apprehending and extraditing the offenders, and the issue of their public trial for crime against humanity. They also raised the issue of whether or not these events gave rise to a state of war. The war against Afghanistan raised the issue of whether or not a state, in this case the United States, could be at war with an entity less than that of a belligerent, the issue of self-defence, either by reference to customary international law or by reference to the United Nations Charter. It also raised the issue of individual and state criminal responsibility and the issue of extension of individual responsibility to cover state responsibility when the latter is not clearly and directly established.