Grenada is a micro-state located in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, approximately 1600 miles from the United States. Its territory covers some 133 square miles—about twice the size of the District of Columbia—and its citizen population numbers around 110,000. Granted independence from British colonial rule in 1974, Grenada functioned under a parliamentary government until March 1979, when Maurice Bishop’s New Joint Endeavor for the Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL) Movement ousted then Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy in a near bloodless coup. Since attaining independence, Grenada sought and secured membership in the British Commonwealth, the Organization of American States, the Caribbean Common Market and the United Nations.

Grenada is one of seven small and newly independent island nations in the Caribbean sharing a common cultural and political background and a close association within the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Because of their small size and common background, these seven nations share a common market, a common currency and to some extent common administrative, diplomatic, judicial and defense functions within the OECS framework. Although independent, in many respects they have closer ties than, for example, members of the OAS or even the EEC.

When momentous events take place on the international scene, there are predictable pressures on those who have reputations as international lawyers to give opinions as to the legalities. There are phone calls from reporters, perhaps even student rallies, to say nothing of inquiries from academic colleagues (especially those who ignore the field most of the time). The recent episode in Grenada gives one an opportunity to evaluate what can be done under those pressured circumstances to give an enlightening and useful judgment as to what international law has to say about such an event. As any professor knows, the time constraints of examinations make a difference in the rate at which students can analyze problems, just as there are differences in the amount of information they can dig out of the stacks when a short period is allocated to the exercise. The space limitations that are imposed on the product also make it hard to put forth a coherent and nuanced argument. The more one knows about the topic, the less easy it is to wrap up the matter neatly and certainly. Legal foundations ought to underpin or contain one’s judgments about policy, but they can do that only if there is some real finality to them. How does one grade the performance of the international law community under this test?

The Reagan administration’s arguments purporting to justify the invasion of Grenada under international law must not be allowed to inveigle the American people into supporting this violent intervention into the domestic affairs of another independent state. Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. Government has routinely concocted evanescent threats to the lives and property of U.S. nationals as pretexts to justify armed interventions into sister American states. The transparency of these pretexts was just as obvious then as it is now. The Reagan administration has not established by means of clear and convincing evidence that there did in fact exist an immediate threat to the safety of U.S. citizens in Grenada. Even then, such a threat could have justified only a limited military operation along the lines of the Israeli raid at Entebbe for the sole purpose of evacuating the major concentration of U.S. nationals at the medical college.