Revisiting the Vietnam War and International Law : Views and Interpretations of Richard Falk

The Vietnam War was a significant historical event that has had profound implications for international law and state actions. This book brings together essays by top international lawyer and commentator Richard Falk on the Vietnam War and its relationship to international law, American foreign policy, and the global world order.

This collection of scholarly and critical essays about the legal aspects of the Vietnam War explores various crimes committed by the United States against North Vietnam: war of aggression; war crimes in bombing civilian targets such as schools and hospitals, and using napalm, cluster bombs, and Agent Orange; crimes against humanity in moving large parts of the population to so-called strategic hamlets; and alleged genocide and ecocide. International lawyer Richard Falk, who observed these acts personally in North Vietnam in 1968, uses international law to show how they came about. This book brings together essays that he has written on the Vietnam War and on its relationship to international law, American foreign policy, and the global world order. Falk argues that only a stronger adherence to international law can save the world from such future tragedies and create a sustainable world order.