One of Britain's most senior legal figures has castigated the Bush administration for its "cynical" disregard for the rule of international law and the UK's record as "an occupying power in Iraq".

Lord Bingham of Cornhill, who has just stepped down as senior law lord, cited the US-led invasion of Iraq, its "redefinition" of torture and the detention conditions of suspects in Guantanamo Bay.

"Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration," he said in a lecture to mark the 50th anniversary of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

It was not clear, he added, what, if any, legal justification the US Government relied on for its invasion of Iraq, although prominent figures had made clear their ambition to remove Saddam Hussein.

He was also scathing about the legal advice of the former Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, on Britain's invasion of Iraq which was "flawed" in stating that a second UN Security Council resolution was not needed.

If that was right, the invasion was a "serious violation of international law and of the rule of law," he said.

"The moment that a state treats the rulers of international law as binding on others but not on itself, the compact on which the law rests is broken."

Lord Goldsmith had however been consistent in saying that regime change was not a justification, Lord Bingham said.

But he added that the record of the British as an occupying power in Iraq had been "sullied by a number of incidents, most notably the shameful beating to death of Mr Baha Mousa in Basra".

However, he said: "But such breaches of the law were not as a result of deliberate government policy and the rights of the victims have been recognised."

"This contrasts with the unilteral decisions of the US Government that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the detention conditions in Guantanamo Bay, Cubna; or to trial of al-Qaida or Taliban prisoners by military commissions, or that al-Qaida suspects should be denied the rights of both prisoners of war and crimiman spects and that torture should be redefined, contrary to the Torture Convention."

Lord Bingham said that recent events highlighted two serious deficiencies with the rule of law in the international sphere.

The first was "the willingnesss of some states in some circumstances to rewrite the rules to meet the perceived exigencies of the political situation," he said. The UK did this in the Suez crisis of 1956.

The second was that only 65 of 192 member states of the United Nations had signed up to the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.

"It is a lamentable fact that, of the five permanent members of the Security Council, only one, the United Kingdom, now does so, Russia and China never having done so and France and the United States having withdrawn earlier acceptances."

That step had to be taken if the rule of law was to become truly effective, he said. Meanwhile, he predicted that states "chastened by their experience in Iraq" would be unlikely to repeat it.

Even though not hauled before any international court, they had been "arraigned at the bar of world opinon and judged unfavourably, with resulting damage to their standing and influence".

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• BGC 'set aside £40m to lure Tullett brokers'
• Legal aid review to ensure value
• Fears as 21 magistrates' courts face closure