'Labour Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti says Theresa May was wrong to launch military intervention in Syria, rejecting the government’s argument that the airstrikes were legally justified on humanitarian grounds.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Chakrabarti said that the government’s arguments for the legal justification for airstrikes carried out in the early hours of Saturday did not pass “the tests it set for itself.”
"You can’t use force under international law just to punish Syria for bad behavior,” Chakrabarti said. “You have to actually be using urgent, necessary and proportionate force. And you have to do it with the will of the world behind you.”
Chakrabarti added that “the government has not passed the tests it set for itself. I don’t think that the government can demonstrate convincing evidence, and a general acceptance by the international community that they had to act in the way they did a few days ago."
Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti rejects the Government’s case that the Syrian air strikes were legal on humanitarian grounds. #r4today
— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) April 16, 2018
Chakrabarti on the Today program said that she has found it hard to understand how there was “no practical alternative to this particular strike,” especially “when the chemical weapons inspectors were on their way in."
Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were expected to begin investigations into the alleged chemical weapons attack on Saturday, hours after joint military action had been conducted.'
Read more: ‘UK government can’t demonstrate convincing evidence’ – Labour’s Chakrabarti questions Syria strikes
