The year in review

With the attacks of 11 September 2001 very much casting their shadow, 2002 was a year in which issues concerning both thejus in belloand thejus ad bellumoccupied centre stage in international law and relations and dominated the news agenda, but often in a way that promoted confusion and misinformation rather than greater understanding of the law, and, as the year progressed, frustration and despair rather than optimism.Transnational terrorism was cemented as the declared pre-eminent security concern of many states, and, as a consequence, full speed into the ‘global war on terror’ (hereinafter GWOT), the integrity of international humanitarian law, human rights law and international law in general, including the role of international organisations such as the United Nations, came under increasing challenge. Focal points of rancorous, polarised debate were the fact and the conditions of detention of persons, including minors, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; the applicability and relevance of international humanitarian law in the context of the terrorist threat and the counter-terrorist response; the perceived conflict between human rights and national security; the coming into being of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the US's almost obsessive opposition to it; and, as the year drew to a close, the spectre of the use of force against Iraq without Security Council authorisation by an increasingly belligerent United States and a handful of its allies.