In a piece carried by Iran’s IRNA state news agency, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has outlined how the US and Israel’s unilateral strikes on the country are not only illegal, threaten international law as a whole.

“The military attacks launched by the United States and the Zionist regime (Israel) against Iran constitute a clear violation of the prohibition on the use of force and an infringement of Iran’s sovereignty,” he writes, noting that the legality of the strikes must be assessed through the lens of international law, not justifications after the fact.

Citing Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use or threat of force by member states, Araghchi notes that the US-Israeli strikes were not approved by the Security Council and allegations of future threats do not meet the requirements for Article 51 — the right to self-defence.

“To treat a potential future threat as grounds for military action would be to accept preventive war based on the unilateral judgment of individual states,” he adds. “Such an interpretation would seriously undermine, if not altogether empty, the prohibition on the use of force of its practical meaning.”

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