ISLAMABAD, March 22: US-led military action against Iraq is a threat to the concept of rule of law in the world, a noted scholar said here on Monday.

Delivering a lecture on the "Legal aspects of military action against Iraq" at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Dr Amir Ali Majid said the US had decided to go to war even before the passage of UN Resolution 1441 adopted by the Security Council on November 8, 2002.

Dr Majid is a permanent reader in international law at the London Metropolitan University, fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a practising British immigration judge and special adviser on ethnic disability affairs to the UK minister for disabled people.

The United States, he added, had sought a UNSC resolution basically to gain unanimous approval by the international body. As Syria proved to be one of the most difficult countries to be persuaded on the resolution, US ambassador to the UN had accepted the concern expressed by that country's ambassador that the resolution should not be used as a pretext to invoke military action against Iraq.

It may be recalled that the Resolution 1441 had stated that if the Saddam regime was found in material breach of its contents the issue would be brought back to the UNSC to discuss what "serious consequences" might follow. Emphasising the meaning of the phrase "serious consequences", Dr Majid explained that the latter did not suggest a military action.