Heading the news today is the escalating rhetoric about the planning of a military intervention in Syria, some reporting in the same vein as the 1999 NATO Kosovo bombing campaign, as the US points its finger at the Syrian government for the recent chemical weapons attack (official remarks here). Julian discussed legality of an intervention without Security Council approval. After UN...
Yes, the title is intended to be provocative. And yes, I think chemical weapons are indeed terrible. But statements like this -- offered by John Kerry in thinly-veiled support for using military force against the Syrian government -- still give me pause (emphasis mine): What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any...
[Travel and other expenses related to my participation in the "100 Years Peace Palace" program provided by the Government of the Netherlands and Radio Netherlands Worldwide] August 28th will mark the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Peace Palace at The Hague. In commemoration of this, the Government of the Netherlands and Radio Netherlands Worldwide have brought a group of...
It looks like the tragic events surrounding a likely chemical weapons attack in Syria will spark a military intervention by the United States, France, and Britain without the authorization of the U.N. Security Council. We have already heard President Obama publicly state that international law is a factor in the decisionmaking process in the U.S. and the NYT suggests U.S....
[Drew F. Cohen is a law clerk to the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He is also a contributing columnist for US News and World Report where he writes about comparative constitutional law, international human rights and global legal affairs.] Recently, Botswana called on the South African Development Community (SADC) to open an investigation into voting irregularities in the recent Presidential election in Zimbabwe...
UN inspectors will be allowed into the Damascus suburb to investigate an alleged chemical weapon attack that killed approximately 355 civilians last week. Julian mentioned that the US may be looking into military intervention into Syria, a move that Russia is concerned about, warning the US not to repeat past mistakes in the region. Despite Russia's pleas for restraint, in Jordan,...
Events Applications for the 2014 Workshop of the Institute for Global Law and Policy will close on September 15, 2013. The workshop will take place from January 3-11, 2014 in Doha, Qatar. More information is here. Calls for Papers The ASIL International Law in Domestic Courts Interest Group Conference will hold its annual paper conference on Friday, December 6, 2013 at Yale Law School. Proposals to...
Although the government of Colombia was far from pleased when the ICJ issued a judgment last November in a long-running territorial dispute with Nicaragua, it did not go so far as to say it would simply ignore the ruling. But Colombia's vice president Angelino Garzon seems to be hinting in recent comments that Colombia is prepared to do just that. “The...
As regular readers may recall, I am skeptical that the use of chemical weapons, by itself, can justify the use of military force under current international law absent authorization from the U.N. Security Council. Of course, I wouldn't oppose the use of military force by the U.S. to stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria, I just doubt its...
My friend Dapo Akande has a superb post at EJIL: Talk! discussing whether the ICC could prosecute the use of chemical weapons by the government in Syria. I agree almost entirely with Dapo's analysis, but I do want to offer a couple of thoughts about his discussion of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: The argument that chemical weapons are...
I am not sure if it is a trend, but recently several nations have raised dubious legal claims over territory that was ceded away by treaty. For instance, Spain has zero legal claim to Gibraltar, as far as I can tell, unless the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceding it to Britain "in perpetuity" can be wished away. Bolivia has zero...
