CYIL Vol. 4, 2013

MAX HILAIRE CYIL 4 ȍ2013Ȏ after a terrorist attack on a night club in Berlin frequented by American soldiers. In 1983 President Reagan invaded Grenada, allegedly to protect American medical students on the island and in response to the assassination of the Prime Minister and several members of his Cabinet. 56 However, the president’s real intention was to remove a Cuban-backed hardline faction that had orchestrated a coup and imposed emergency rule on the island. The Grenada invasion was overwhelmingly condemned by the United Nations General Assembly as a flagrant violation of international law. 57 President Reagan also supported anti-communist groups in Africa and Latin America, whose wars brought untold suffering to civilians. After Nicaragua sued the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for mining its harbors, the Reagan administration withdrew from the court’s Compulsory Jurisdiction clause and boycotted the proceedings. 58 The court eventually ruled against the United States but President Reagan disregarded the judgment. 59 The Reagan administration vetoed several resolutions in the Security Council, calling on it to comply with the ICJ’s judgment. 60 President Bush subsequently negotiated an aid package with the new democratically-elected government of Violeta Chamorro to repeal the law requiring compensation in exchange for a U.S. aid package. The Reagan Administration refused to submit for Senate ratification the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which the president deemed contained provisions that were anti-free market. The president was particularly concerned with the role of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and the requirement that wealthy countries had to transfer technology to developing countries in order to allow them to participate in deep sea exploration. 61 Reagan sent troops into Lebanon without Security Council authorization. He clandestinely provided weapons and intelligence to Iraq to help it defeat Iran during the Iran- Iraq war and blocked efforts in the Security Council to condemn Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against civilians. 62 Reagan reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers with the U.S. flag to provoke an Iranian attack and to give him a justification to attack Iran in self-defense. Reagan later destroyed Iran’s oil platforms in the Gulf and inadvertently 56 Christine Gray, The Use of Force and the International Legal Order , p.602, in Malcolm D. Evans, ed. International Law, (2003). 57 U.N. G.A. Res. 38/7 (Nov.2, 1983).The vote in the General Assembly was 109 to 9, with 27 abstentions. 58 supra note 52. 59 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America, Judgment June 27, 1986, I.C.J. 14. 60 U.N. Security Council Document S-18428 (Oct. 28, 1986). 61 Jeane J. Kirkpatrick’s Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, April 24, 2004, in which she argued that “Viewed from the perspective of U.S. interests and Reagan Administration principles, it was a bad bargain,” and that “its ratification will diminish our capacity for self-government, including, ultimately, our capacity for self-defense.” 62 Joost Hilterman, A Poisonous Affairs: America, Iraq and the Gassing of Halabja (2007); Charles Tripp, The Security Council and the Iran-Iraq War, p. 374 , in Vaughan Lowe, Adam Roberts, Jennifer Welsh &Dominik Zaum, eds. The United Nations Security Council and War (2110).