A political community of some sort is a necessary precondition of law. The members of this community must grant common consent to the law and accept the means of enforcing it. International law is built on the customs of states and ratified treaties. But an important consensual tool is The Public Conscience, the almost instinctive sense of right and wrong we all share even if some communities emphasise certain aspects different-ially. This concept is enshrined in the 1907 Hague Convention and the Protocols Additional to the Geneva Convention. Its status as a source of law was confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1996. The fact that International Law develops through custom as well as through formal documents, such as treaties, provides an important niche for the Public Conscience.

In 2001 Peacerights, a coalition of legal experts and peace activists came together to deal with issues of international human rights and humanitarian law. Working with other groups, Peacerights decided to contest the legality of the Invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. In October 2002 there was a Citizens' Legal Inquiry into the Legality of use of force against Iraq. It involved eminent lawyers and legal academics. The event took place at Grays Inn, London. It concluded that the use of armed force against Iraq, in the absence of a clear UN Security Council mandate, would be in breach of international law. Ordinary citizens raised £8,000 to help pay for the Legal Inquiry. In addition the BBC programme "Today" soon followed up the Inquiry with an investigation of its own. The programme makers expressly acknowledged that it was directly inspired by the Citizens’ Legal Inquiry a t Grays Inn. Professor Vaughan Lowe, Fellow of All Souls College, and a barrister practising from Essex Court Chambers, acting as judge, was persuaded that no attack on Iraq could be legal without a further Security Council resolution. BBC listeners had a rare opportunity to hear a legal analysis of the Iraq crisis.

In November 2002 lawyers working for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) asked f o r a judicial review t o decide whether the UK could legally use armed force against Iraq without a further United Nations Security Council Resolution. However, the court did not allow the case to come to trial. Lord Justice Simon Brown said that "English courts will not rule upon the true meaning and effect of international instruments which apply only at the level of international law." Even so, the challenge yielded considerable media coverage and put pressure on the Government.

Legal actions prior to March 2003 concerned the legality of initiating the war. With the outbreak of war a new question arose - the legality of how it was actually conducted. A high quality team of international law professors met at the London School of Economics in November 2003. If the panel finds that there have been breaches of International Humanitarian Law it will present a report to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the basis that individual members of the UK Government are responsible, at the highest level, for decisions on how force was used against Iraq and its civilian population. Such a report will comprise a reasoned analysis of the relevant legal principles applicable to hi-tech warfare and the best evidence available from eye witnesses and weapons experts as to what weapons were used, what the effects of those weapons were, and, therefore, whether the weapons or methods of attack used in the war came within the definition of war crimes so that the Prosecutor is duty bound to investigate.