Pre-emption and prevention after 9/11: evaluating the Bush Doctrine’s challenge to international law on the use-of-force

© 2012 Aiden James WarrenThis thesis focuses on the 2001-2004 period in examining the international legal basis of the Bush Administration’s jus ad bellum – or specific use-of force encompassing prevention/pre-emption – paradigm in the global war on terror, popularly known as the “Bush Doctrine.” The thinking and elements relating to this paradigm in U.S. and international legal and policy communities predates the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. However, it was the events of 9/11 that crystallised much of this thinking, at least in the minds of the Administration and, most importantly, the President. Through a series of incremental and ad hoc decisions and measures taken in the aftermath of 9/11, the Administration gradually laid out an international legal paradigm on the right to use military force in the global war on terror. In essence, this thesis will assess the extent the Bush Administration during 2001-2004 – in the domain of the U.N. Charter jus ad bellum regime – sought to overhaul or overturn the rules governing the use-of-force regarding its strategy of prevention/pre-emption