In support of his view, Ferencz quoted the resignation letter of the Deputy Legal Adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst to the UK Foreign Ministry, who left her post before the war started. "I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution to revive the ...

In a document, dated 15 October 2002, then Foreign Office Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood (now member of the United Nations International Law Commission) set out legal advice which he had prepared with the assistance of Dame Elizabeth Wilmshurst (now Professor of International Law) in which he ...

Elizabeth Wilmshurst concurred, noting, “the facts did not justify the use of force in self-defence. Existing Security Council resolutions did not authorize the use of force. There was no other legal justification. A desire to change the regime did not give a legal basis for military action,” adding, “I regarded the ...

The Iraq Inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot and composed of five privy councillors, finally published its report on the morning of 6 July, seven years and 21 days after it was established by Gordon Brown with a remit to 'look at the run-up to the conflict, the conflict itself and the reconstruction, so that we can ...

Elizabeth Wilmshurst. By acting in defiance of the UN charter, as I warned when I was a Foreign Office lawyer in 2003, we put our reputation at risk. So it has proved. Former attorney general Lord Goldsmith. 'Lord Goldsmith, who as attorney general constitutionally had the last word, had given a provisional ...

Less famous was that of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the government's deputy legal advisor, whose letter hinted darkly that signing off an attack on Iraq would compromise her duties in war crimes cases at the International Criminal Court. These are resignations as chilling prophesy. Done right, the resignation of ...

After 30 days of testimony, it was two moments of human drama that summed up the story so far of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. Neither was recorded in the official minutes, but each was significant. In one, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned on the eve of the invasion ...

A Foreign Office lawyer who resigned in protest at the Iraq war said the way ministers weighed up the legal case for the invasion was "lamentable". Elizabeth Wilmshurst told the Iraq inquiry she thought the war was unlawful without express UN backing. And she said it was "extraordinary" that Attorney ...

Former Foreign Office legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst was the only civil servant to resign in protest at the decision to go to war in Iraq. Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, resigned in March 2003 before the first attacks on Baghdad. She told her ...

On Tuesday, three days before Tony Blair faces the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, Elizabeth Wilmshurst will make perhaps the most explosive contribution to date by revealing the confusion and infighting between officials and ministers over the legality of deposing Saddam Hussein without United Nations ...

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, resigned in March 2003 because she did not believe the war with Iraq was legal. Her letter was released by the Foreign Office to the BBC News website under the Freedom of Information Act. A minute dated 18 March 2003 from Elizabeth ...

In support of his view, Ferencz quoted the resignation letter of the Deputy Legal Adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst to the UK Foreign Ministry, who ...

... advice which he had prepared with the assistance of Dame Elizabeth Wilmshurst (now Professor of International Law) in which he stated of a ...

By acting in defiance of the UN charter, as I warned when I was a Foreign Office lawyer in 2003, we put our reputation at risk. So it has proved.

Less famous was that of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the government's deputy legal advisor, whose letter hinted darkly that signing off an attack on ...

I will not believe they have understood what they did until two things happen: when Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the Foreign Office lawyer who ...

In one, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned on the eve of the invasion, received spontaneous applause as she ...

Elizabeth Wilmshurst told the Iraq inquiry she thought the war was unlawful without express UN backing. And she said it was "extraordinary" ...

Former Foreign Office legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst was the only civil servant to resign in protest at the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, resigned in March 2003 because she did not believe the war with Iraq was ...

Elizabeth Wilmshurst concurred, noting, "the facts did not justify the use of force in self-defence. Existing Security Council resolutions did not authorize the use of force.

Less famous was that of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the government's deputy legal advisor, whose letter hinted darkly that signing off an attack on Iraq would compromise her duties in war crimes cases at the International Criminal Court.