Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• Top Ugandan rebel commander Dominic Ongwen is due to make his first appearance at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague today to face war crimes charges.
• United Nations experts warned that Sudan’s remote western territories could become a breeding ground for radical Islamists as violence in the country’s conflict-torn Darfur region rages at an alarming level.
• Boko Haram has launched a major offensive in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri and the town of Monguno, engaging in fierce battles with the military.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• At least 16 people have been killed in clashes in Cairo between police and protesters on the fourth anniversary of the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. Additionally, a BBC reporter in Cairo has accused police forces of threatening to kill her while covering protests by Muslim Brotherhood supporters commemorating the 2011 uprising.
• At least seven people have been killed in rocket attacks in Damascus, with at least 53 rockets fired on several neighborhoods in the heaviest attack the Syrian capital has witnessed in recent years.
• The United States and its coalition partners have launched another round of air strikes against Islamic State, conducting 25 strikes, 13 in Iraq, since early Thursday.
• Moroccan authorities said on Sunday they arrested a suspected Algerian member of the militant group responsible for kidnapping and beheading French tourist Herve Gourdel east of Algiers in September.
• Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has been summoned before parliament to explain his recent public stroll with US Secretary of State John Kerry during nuclear negotiations, according to a report by the country’s official IRNA news agency.
• The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has reportedly demanded the release of an Iraqi woman detained in Jordan in exchange for a Japanese national they are holding captive, following the group’s apparent killing of another Japanese citizen, which the Japanese have harshly condemned.

Asia

• North Korea called on Thursday for the top United Nations human rights body to investigate allegations of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture in the George W. Bush era, that were contained in a recent Senate report.
• A group calling itself “Official Cyber Caliphate” said it hacked the official website of national carrier Malaysia Airlines, but the airline said its data servers remained intact and passenger bookings were not affected.
• North Korea on Friday demanded the lifting of sanctions, imposed by South Korea after a 2010 attack on one of its naval vessels, as a condition for resuming dialogue.

Europe

• Spain will start talks with the United States about further increasing the number of U.S. troops at an air base in the south of the country, Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said on Friday.
• France’s top court ruled on Friday it was possible to strip the nationality of a Franco-Moroccan man naturalized as French who was convicted on terrorism charges, paving the way for more dual nationality jihadists to lose their passports.
• Pro-Moscow rebels, backed by what NATO says is the open participation of Russian troops, pressed on with their offensive on Sunday after restarting the war in eastern Ukraine with the first all-out assault since a truce five months ago.
• Senior figures in the European Union brandished a threat of new sanctions against Russia over the weekend violence in eastern Ukraine, with one blasting what he called “appeasement” of Moscow.
• The European Union on Friday suspended some budget assistance to Guyana on the grounds that President Donald Ramotar’s 2014 suspension of parliament has left the nation without adequate supervision of state spending.

Americas

• US Secretary of State John Kerry says the US is prepared to do more to help Nigeria fight Boko Haram.
• President Barack Obama on Sunday defended his administration’s drone-based counter-terrorism strategy against al Qaeda militants in Yemen, saying the alternative would be to deploy U.S. troops, which was not sustainable: “It is not neat and it is not simple, but it is the best option that we have,” Obama told reporters at a news conference in New Delhi.
• A senior U.S. diplomat in Cuba for negotiations on restoring long-frozen diplomatic relations met a group of dissidents on Friday, seeking to underline Washington’s concern over human rights but irritating the island’s communist government.
• Prime Minister Stephen Harper denied on Thursday that Canadian military advisers in Iraq would be dragged into combat against Islamic State militants despite a recent clash but said Canada’s forces would kill anyone who attacked them.

Oceania

• Conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott has awarded Australia’s highest honor to Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth, sparking a barrage of criticism across the country on its national day of celebration. The award grated with republicans who want to sever ties with Britain and appoint an Australian president.
• Australia called on Indonesia on Friday to reconsider its decision to execute two Australians convicted of drug offences, a move that is likely to strain already fragile ties between the two neighbors.
• The United States has agreed that Australian David Hicks, jailed on terrorism charges for five years at Guantanamo, is innocent, his lawyer said on Friday.

UN/World

• A new round of U.N. talks between rival Libyan factions will take place in Geneva on Monday, the United Nations said, even as gunmen kidnapped the deputy foreign minister of the recognised government.
• The World Health Organisation (WHO) has admitted that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa revealed “inadequacies and shortcomings” in how it responds to crises.

Call for papers

• International Colloquium – Current Issues of Agricultural Law in a Global Perspective, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa, September 17-18, 2015. The Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and the Institute of Law, Politics and Sustainability are pleased to announce the First Edition of the International Colloquium on Current Issues in Agricultural Law in a Global Perspective. The Colloquium is intended to be an opportunity for Post Docs and Ph.D Candidates to present and discuss their research results and methodological approaches in a supportive environment. The aim is to build a community of early career researchers interested in agricultural law and its intersections with other legal areas. We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers as well as studies on issues at the local, regional and international levels. The main topics include: Natural Resources and Environmental Protection at the cross-roads with Agricultural Law; Agricultural models and People’s Rights; Agri-Food Production: Tradition and Technologies; International Trade Agreements, Investment Law and Agriculture. Those interested should submit a short CV and 400 word abstract to colloquium [at] sssup [dot] it no later than April 3, 2015. For full details, including information about application processes, please see the official Call for Papers

Announcements

• ALMA and the Radzyner School of Law of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya would like to invite you to next session of the Joint International Humanitarian Law Forum. The session will be held on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 18:30 in room C110 (Arazi-Ofer Building, 2nd floor) at the IDC. In this session Adv. Efrat Bergman-Sapir, the Director of the Legal Department of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel will discuss: Torture under the Protection of the Law? From HCJ to CIA (following the release of the U.S. Senate Torture Report). Following the presentation, there will be an open round table discussion. Please note that the session will be conducted in Hebrew. The meeting is free and open to the public. If you wish to attend the meeting please register in advance via forum [at] alma-ihl [dot] org.

Our previous events and announcements post can be found here. If you would like to post an announcement on Opinio Juris, please contact us with a one-paragraph description of your announcement along with hyperlinks to more information. 

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• At least 80 people have been abducted and three others killed in a cross-border raid in northern Cameroon by the Nigerian armed group Boko Haram, officials have said. Nigeria’s neighbors are banding together to fight the armed group; a contingent of soldiers from Chad has arrived in northern Cameroon where it will deploy to the Nigerian border as part of efforts to contain Boko Haram fighters.
• Mali’s government and the United Nations have declared the West African nation free of Ebola following a 42-day period without a new case of the deadly virus.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Negotiators for Iran and six global powers, striving to reach a complex deal on Tehran’s nuclear program, have had “serious and useful” discussions in Geneva and will meet again next month, the European Union has said.
• Israel said on Sunday it had cracked the first Islamic State cell on its soil, made up of seven Arab citizens who would be prosecuted on charges of planning attacks in the Jewish state and communicating with the insurgent group in Syria.
• Israel is lobbying member-states of the International Criminal Court to cut funding for the tribunal in response to its launch of an inquiry into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, the country’s foreign minister said on Sunday.

Asia

• A senior Afghan army general has told Al Jazeera that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has been active in Afghanistan.
• Tens of thousands of people staged a rally on Monday in Russia’s Chechnya region against French magazine Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, which the predominantly Muslim region’s leader denounced as “vulgar and immoral”.
• Chinese police shot dead two ethnic Uighurs trying to cross the border with Vietnam, state media said on Monday, as the public security ministry accused a separatist group of orchestrating hundreds of cases of human smuggling.
• Nigeria, Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors in Indonesia after the Southeast Asian nation ignored their pleas for clemency and executed six prisoners for drug offences on Sunday, the first executions under President Joko Widodo. Australia could do the same.
• Five Pakistani men have been arrested in Afghanistan in connection with the Taliban massacre of 134 school children in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last month, officials from both countries said on Sunday.
• A North Korean defector whose escape from a brutal prison camp was the subject of a bestselling book has changed key parts of his story and on Sunday apologized for misleading people.

Europe

• The European Union said on Monday it would appeal against a court ruling that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas should be removed from the bloc’s terrorist list.
• Ukrainian troops have recaptured almost all the territory of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine they had lost to separatists in recent weeks and thousands gathered in Kiev for a state-sponsored peace march.
• British Prime Minister David Cameron said there was “a right to cause offense about someone’s religion” in a free society, drawing a distinction between himself and Pope Francis in their response to the deadly Islamist attacks in Paris.

Americas

• A delegation of US congressional Democrats began a three-day visit to Cuba to discuss expectations for the normalisation of relations between the United States and the island nation.

UN/World

• U.N. peacekeepers in Central African Republic have arrested a senior leader of the anti-balaka militia, wanted for crimes including murder, rebellion, rape and looting, the country’s senior prosecutor said on Sunday.

This week, we celebrated Opinio Juris’ 10th anniversary, with our permabloggers weighing in with their thoughts on the last decade of blogging. Julian kicked the discussion off with how the legal blogosphere has changed over the last ten years. Roger reflected on blogging and the marketplace of ideas. In Peter’s musings, he explored the evolution of international law as well as the role blogging has played and will play in the future. Duncan shared nine realizations that he has made over the last decade through blogging and teaching. Making international law no longer the invisible college but visible and accessible was at the heart of Peggy’s contribution.

Chris asked about the must-reads and key scholarly texts in international law over the last decade. Through tracing her own journey into international law, Deborah thanked Opinio Juris and the readers for the conversation. Kevin reflected on how blogging enhanced his career, and helped him to develop into the nicer, kinder blog version of himself he is today. Jens touched on the real-world impact blogging can and does have, while hoping for a continued discourse. Kristin capped the joviality off by wishing the blog a happy birthday and looking forward to the continued discussion.

Other contributions of note this week were two guest posts. The first from Rebecca Hamilton posed the question: When should the ICC call it quits? The second, by Oliver Windridge, was a great overview of the activities of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights from 2014.

Duncan congratulated Dean Andrew Guzman on his new appointment at USC’s Gould School of Law and Kevin pondered the case of Roger Ver and whether renouncing US citizenship for “selfish economic reasons” makes you a bad person. And as usual, I wrapped up the week’s headlines and posted Events and Announcements.

Thanks for following us this week, and over the last decade. We’re very grateful to you readers for being part of the development of Opinio Juris and hope that the conversation continues far into the future.

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• A girl perhaps no more than 10 years old detonated powerful explosives concealed under her veil at a crowded northern Nigeria market on Saturday, killing as many as 20 people and wounding many more. On Sunday, at least six people were killed after two suspected child suicide bombers blew themselves up in a market in northeast Nigeria, witnesses say, in the second attack involving young girls strapped with explosives.
• The United Nations Security Council backed plans by Democratic Republic of the Congo and U.N. peacekeepers to begin a military campaign to “neutralize” a Rwandan rebel group in the country’s rugged eastern provinces.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court may be close to opening an initial investigation into last summer’s Gaza war.
• Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Venezuela’s president on Saturday he backed coordinated action between Tehran and Caracas to reverse a rapid fall in global oil prices which he described as a “political ploy hatched by common enemies”.
• American-led forces launched 12 air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria since Friday, all but one of them near the contested city of Kobani, the U.S. military said.
• Reports have surfaced that a U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed at least 50 Syrian civilians late last month when it targeted a headquarters of Islamic State extremists in northern Syria, according to an eyewitness and a Syrian opposition human rights organization.

Asia

• Children streamed back to school across Pakistan on Monday in an anxious start to a new term following last month’s massacre of 134 students at an army-run school in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar.
• South Korean President Park Geun-hye has said that she is ready to hold a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un without any precondition and urged Pyongyang to promptly return to dialogue.
• China has been quietly toughening travel restrictions on students and businessmen traveling from Ebola-hit West Africa even as it increases support to fight the deadly disease on the ground in the region, diplomats say.

Europe

• Two gunmen forced their way into and opened fire in the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing twelve, including staff and two police officers, and wounding eleven, four of them seriously. The gunmen escaped but a day later they were shot dead as they fled a warehouse where they had hostages north of Paris, firing at police. World leaders including Muslim and Jewish statesmen linked arms to lead more than a million French citizens through Paris in an unprecedented march to pay tribute to victims of Islamist militant attacks.
• These attacks may fuel rising anti-immigration movements around Europe and inflame a “culture war” about the place of religion and ethnic identity in society. Over the weekend, a German newspaper in the northern port city of Hamburg that reprinted caricatures of Prophet Muhammad from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was the target of an arson attack, according to police and the offices of Le Soir, a Belgian newspaper that republished cartoons from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, were evacuated on Sunday after receiving an anonymous bomb threat, its staff said. Hackers claiming to be with the group Anonymous say they have hacked a jihadist website in retaliation for the terror attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
• Transsexuals, transvestites and others thought to have what Russia considers to be “sexual disorders” have been barred from driving in the country for “medical reasons” under new road safety regulations.

Americas

• More than a decade after a series of shootings and bombings in the Jerusalem area, a trial is slated this week in New York to determine whether the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority should pay up to $1 billion to victims.
• Egyptian-born imam Abu Hamza al-Masri has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of terrorism charges last year.

UN/World

• The United Nations is immune from a lawsuit seeking compensation for victims of a deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti, a US judge said in dismissing a case that government lawyers said could open international body to an onslaught of litigation.
• Hundreds of civilians were massacred in two separate incidents in South Sudan last year in which victims were targeted for their ethnicity, nationality or political views, possibly amounting to war crimes, the United Nations said in a report on Friday.

Events

• On Wednesday, 28 January 2015, the International Humanitarian and Criminal Law Platform of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut and PAX are hosting the launch of the report: ‘Unacceptable Risk: Use of explosive weapons in populated areas through the lens of three cases before the ICTY’ at 7:00 in the evening at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in The Hague. More information can be found here. To register, please send an e-mail with your name, organisation and affiliation to conferencemanager [at] asser [dot] nl
• The Wilson Center will host a panel on Wednesday, 26 February 2015 to examine practical suggestions for reform of the current system of resolving international investment treaty disputes. The increase in cases against States and their challenge to public policy measures has generated a strong debate, usually framed by complaints about a perceived lack of legitimacy, consistency and predictability. While some ideas have been proposed for improvement, there has never before been a book systematically focusing on constructive paths forward. The new volume launched with this panel discussion features 38 chapters by almost 50 leading contributors, all offering concrete proposals to improve the ISDS system for the 21st century. Registration begins at 8:30 am. More information can be found here.

Calls for Papers

• The programme chairs of the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations invite paper, panel, and roundtable proposals for submission to any of the 64 sections on the 2015 programme. All sections welcome individual paper proposals, and most welcome panel/roundtable proposals as well – please contact section chairs to inquire about this. Each 105-minute panel/roundtable should comprise five papers/presenters plus a discussant who will also act as panel/roundtable chair. Proposals (with abstracts of 200 words maximum) must be submitted no later than 15th January 2015, via the online submission system: www.conftool.pro/paneuropean2015 . More information about the conference can be found here.
• Professor Ole Kristian Fauchald and Postdoctoral Fellow Daniel Behn of PluriCourts invite scholars to submit paper proposals papers for a roundtable discussion on measuring judicial responses to legitimacy crises that a number of international courts and tribunals have experienced in recent years, during the ESIL Conference, 10-12 September. The deadline is 25 January. More information about the call can be found here, and the conference, here.
• The Palestine Yearbook of International Law is now inviting submissions of scholarly articles for publication for its next volume, XVIII (2015). Unlike recent years, this upcoming volume will not be based on a specific theme. Therefore, the editors encourage the submission of scholarly pieces of relevance to public international law and Palestine. The Yearbook is edited at Birzeit University’s Institute of Law (Birzeit, Palestine), and published by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (The Hague, The Netherlands). The Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook is Mr. Ardi Imseis. At this stage, the Institute of Law will be accepting abstracts for review. Abstracts should include a working title, with a preliminary outline of the author’s legal arguments, along with a CV. Prospective authors should express interest by e-mailing the Assistant Editor of the Yearbook, Ms. Reem Al-Botmeh and sending an abstract of the suggested paper as indicated above, along with the prospective author’s CV. The abstract of under 750 words should be submitted by 15 February 2015. Notification of decisions will be provided 1 March 2015.For more information, please contact Ms. Reem Al-Botmeh, the Assistant Editor of the Yearbook, at rbotmeh [at] gmail [dot] com or alternatively, you may communicate directly with Mr. Ardi Imseis at AImseis [at] hotmail [dot] com. More information can be found here.
• The Utrecht Journal of International and European Law is issuing a Call for Papers on ‘General Issues’ within International and European law. The Board of Editors invites submissions addressing any aspect of International and/or European law. All types of manuscripts, from socio-legal to legal technical to comparative, will be considered for publication. The Board of Editors will select articles based on quality of research and writing, diversity and relevance of topic. The novelty of the academic contribution is also an essential requirement. Prospective articles should be submitted online via our website and should conform to the journal style guide (See here for full details). Utrecht Journal has a word limit of 15,000 words including footnotes. For further information please consult our website or email us at utrechtjournal [at] urios [dot] org. Deadline for submissions is 30 April 2015.

Announcements

• Vol 6, No 1 (2014) of Trade, Law and Development (Special Issue: Trade & Climate Change) has been published. This issue is a Special issue on Trade and Climate Change. It is the eleventh in series, and also commemorates the sixth anniversary year of Trade, Law and Development. More information can be found here.

Our previous events and announcements post can be found here. If you would like to post an announcement on Opinio Juris, please contact us with a one-paragraph description of your announcement along with hyperlinks to more information. 

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• Boko Haram fighters have overrun an army base in the remote northeast Nigerian town of Baga, killing scores of soldiers in the attack, security sources have said.
• At least 100 people have been killed after a cross-border attack against the central African nation of Burundi from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), AFP news agency reports quoting a military source.
• An unmanned U.S. aircraft that unleashed Hellfire missiles at a vehicle in Somalia earlier this week killed a leader of the al Shabaab militant group, dealing a setback to its ability to carry out anti-government attacks, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• The Palestinian ambassador to the UN has formally submitted Palestine’s application to join the International Criminal Court to the UN secretary-general; Israel will withhold critical tax revenue and seek ways to bring war crimes prosecutions against Palestinian leaders in retaliation for this move.
• Additionally, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that he was discussing with Jordan plans to resubmit to the United Nations Security Council a resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state that failed to win enough votes last week.
• Violence in Iraq in 2014 killed at least 12,282 civilians, making it the deadliest year since the sectarian bloodshed of 2006-07, the United Nations said in a statement.
• Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for curbs on the state’s involvement in business and an end to Tehran’s international isolation on Sunday to help rescue an economy hurt by sanctions, corruption and mismanagement.

Asia

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was open to a high-level summit with neighboring South Korea, days after a proposal from Seoul to resume dialogue.
• NATO has formally ended its 13-year combat mission in Afghanistan.
• Three Yemenis and two Tunisians held for more than a decade at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo have been flown to Kazakhstan for resettlement, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of prisoner transfers aimed at closing the facility.

Europe

• The German government expects Greece to commit to the terms of its EU/IMF bailout agreement after a January 25 election and a possible change of government in Athens, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.
• Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday he would like to bring forward a planned referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union from 2017 if possible.
• A cargo ship abandoned by its crew with 359 Syrian refugees on board was towed ashore in Italy on Saturday in the second such rescue this week, prompting calls for stronger European Union action in the face of new tactics by human traffickers.
• Lithuania joined the euro zone at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, hoping to anchor itself in Europe as its former master Russia flexes its military muscle in the region.

Americas

• North Korea was hit with more sanctions on Friday designed to impede access to the U.S. financial system in the wake of a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, which the Obama Administration has said was supported by the reclusive country.
• The United States and its allies staged 29 air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq on Wednesday, the Combined Joint Task Force said on Thursday.

UN/World

• The outgoing chief of the United Nations’ anti-Ebola mission has voiced hope that global efforts would put an end to the outbreak of the deadly virus in West Africa by the end of 2015, but said that months of tough work remain.

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• The death toll from Ebola in the three worst-affected countries in West Africa has risen to 7,373 among 19,031 cases known to date there, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.
• South Sudan rebels killed, raped and kidnapped civilians during an attack in October, leaving at least 11 people dead, the UN says in a report.
• Up to 10,000 children have been recruited by armed groups during the conflict in the Central African Republic despite a U.N.-backed peacekeeping presence, the number rising sharply in the past two years, Save the Children said on Thursday.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Arab Gulf countries have vowed they will not cut oil production or hold an emergency meeting, despite a glut in global supplies and plummeting oil prices.
• Syria said on Sunday that an Israeli drone had been brought down in the province of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
• Jordan executed 11 citizens on Sunday, ending an eight-year moratorium on capital punishment, judicial sources said.

Asia

• Despite fears of violence, thousands of Pakistanis in Peshawar are mourning the loss of 149 people – mainly children – killed by the Taliban in an attack on a military-run school.
• China aims to “regulate” foreign non-governmental organizations under a law being discussed this week, state media said on Monday, which aims to step up supervision of the fast-growing sector.
• A senior Chinese leader will visit Vietnam this month, China’s state media said on Monday, amid tension between the neighbors over competing claims in the South China Sea.
• China said on Monday it opposed all forms of cyberattacks but there was no proof that North Korea was responsible for the hacking of Sony Pictures, as the United States has said. U.S. President Barack Obama moved to prevent U.S. anger at North Korea from spiraling out of control on Sunday by saying the massive hacking of Sony Pictures was not an act of war but instead was cyber-vandalism. North Korea denies involvement and wants a joint investigation with the United States into the hack.

Europe

• Short, snappy and focused on two priorities – reviving sagging investment in Europe and standing firm towards Russia, the first European Union summit under new leadership was a demonstrative break with the past.
• European and Russian leaders were both defiant in the face of economic tensions on 18 December, with EU leaders announcing new sanctions on Crimea and Russian President Vladimir Putin warning his country of two years of recession.
• European security watchdog the OSCE prolonged the mandate of its observer mission at two Russian checkpoints on the border with Ukraine by three months on Thursday, the longest extension so far.
• Italian finance police on Wednesday arrested 17 people accused of running an international money laundering ring through a British-based money transfer services company which was used to shuttle illegal proceeds abroad, mostly to China.

Americas

• Cuban President Raul Castro has confirmed he will participate in the Washington-backed Summit of the Americas in Panama in April, where he will potentially have his first meeting with US President Barack Obama since the two countries agreed on Wednesday to reestablish diplomatic ties.
• U.S.-led forces attacked Islamic State targets on Sunday with 13 air strikes in Iraq and three in Syria, using fighter, bomber and other aircraft, the U.S. military said.
• Four Afghans held for more than a decade at Guantanamo Bay detention facility have been returned to their home country, the Pentagon has said.
• President Barack Obama on Friday said he would ban exports of goods, technology or services to Ukraine’s Crimea region, and called on Russia to end its annexation of the region.
• Colombia welcomed an offer by FARC rebels for a ceasefire but rejected their demand for independent monitoring, putting the plan to stop hostilities on uncertain ground hours before it was to start.

UN/World

• The UN General Assembly has called for North Korea to be referred to the International Criminal Court over alleged crimes against humanity, in a landmark resolution adopted by a strong majority.

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir claimed victory over the International Criminal Court on Saturday after it shelved further investigation of war crimes in Darfur, and reaffirmed his hard line on the rebel region.
• The ICC confirmed four charges of crimes against humanity against Charles Ble Goude, and committed the ally of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to trial at The Hague.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Palestinian officials are to present a draft resolution to the UN Security Council seeking a two-year deadline for Israel to end its occupation, an official has said.
• The UN Security Council has called for a “swift and transparent investigation” after a Palestinian minister died during a confrontation with Israeli soldiers.

Asia

• About 300 Chinese people are fighting alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a Chinese state-run newspaper said on Monday, a rare tally that is likely to fuel worry in China that militants pose a threat to security.
• Philippine President Benigno Aquino has suspended army operations against Maoist guerrillas for a month to mark Christmas and a visit by Pope Francis, the head of the military said on Monday.

Europe

• Denmark will claim on Monday ownership of around 900,000 square kilometers of the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean by filing documents to United Nations.
• German police have noted a significant rise in far-right extremism and attacks targeting foreigners, a news report said on Sunday, amid a growing debate about a new Islamophobic movement.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande urged Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko on Sunday to press ahead with reforms to facilitate an economic recovery and access to foreign aid.
• European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned Britain not to discriminate against workers from fellow EU countries and said any moves to restrict the free movement of people could ultimately harm capital flows into London’s financial center.

Americas

• Philippine prosecutors on Monday filed murder charges against a U.S. marine over the death of a transgender Filipino outside a former U.S. Navy base, in a case that could test the close security ties between the two allies.
• Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has defended the US’ now-banned programme that tortured al-Qaeda suspects, describing the CIA operatives who ran it as heroes.His remarks came days after the US Senate released a long-awaited investigation into enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the CIA to question terror suspects post 9/11.

Oceania

• A man holding hostages in a Sydney cafe has demanded that a flag of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] group be delivered to him and warned that four bombs have been planted around the city, according to a local media report.

UN/World

• About 190 nations agreed on Sunday the building blocks of a new-style global deal due in 2015 to combat climate change amid warnings that far tougher action will be needed to limit increases in global temperatures.

Events

• The International Humanitarian and Criminal Law Platform of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden University cordially invite you to attend the launch of the book: ‘Nuclear Weapons Under International Law’  taking place Wednesday, 17 December in The Hague. Please find more information here.

Calls for Papers

• The McCoubrey Centre for International Law of the University of Hull Law School is hosting on 2 & 3 July 2015 its 2nd conference for research students and early career scholars. The conference’s title is “Making International Custom More Tangible”, and the keynote speech will be given by Sir Michael Wood, the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission on the Formation and Evidence of Customary International Law. The principal aims of the McCoubrey Centre Conference are to promote wider debate on the issues being addressed by the ILC, to stimulate research on customary law by younger academics, and to contribute to a wider understanding of the foundations and function of customary international law in the 21^st century. All panels will be chaired by leading academics, who will be invited to comment on the papers. Selected papers will appear in a volume edited by the McCoubrey Centre for International Law. Interested participants should provide an abstract of no more than 500 words by 15 February 2015. Abstracts shall be uploaded on the conference’s webpage. Speakers will be informed of acceptance of their papers by 6 March 2015.

Announcements

• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has launched its Online Training Centre, a collection of e-learning modules on international humanitarian law and other areas of the ICRC’s work. These online training courses are available to anyone as self-paced courses, free of charge. For more information, please visit the website here.
• As we have announced previously, the ICRC also has recently launched the online version of the casebook, How Does Law Protect in War. This new online reference platform in IHL features:
  • Regular updates with new case studies on contemporary armed conflicts
  • An comprehensive IHL outline composed of 14 different themes
  • More than 350 case studies covering past and contemporary armed conflicts
  • More than 20 model IHL courses and pedagogical resources for IHL lecturers
  • More than 300 terms and notions referenced in the online index “A to Z”
  • Full online navigation between theory and practice through internal links and search engine

Last week’s events and announcements can be found here. If you would like to post an announcement on Opinio Juris, please contact us with a one-paragraph description of your announcement along with hyperlinks to more information. 

Looking back at the week that was, Opinio Juris bloggers covered a number of news-related issues. Several provided commentary on the release of the US Senate’s Torture Report. Prior to its release, Kevin expressed disbelief at a post by ACLU Director Anthony Romero urging blanket amnesty for those responsible for torture, and as soon as it became available, Jens announced the report’s availability and his first thoughts here, before discussing what we really fight about when we talk about torture here.

Deborah examined the question of prosecution in response to allegations in the report, and Roger posted on the report as a truth and reconciliation commission, akin to his research on the transitional justice process post-apartheid in South Africa. Finally, Julian weighed in analyzing a recent trend that the US public does not necessarily agree with international law’s absolute ban on torture.

In other news, after the ICC dropped the case against Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, Julian posed the provocative question whether this might spell the end for the ICC. Additionally, Kevin flagged the OTP’s decision to suspend the investigation into alleged crimes in Darfur, troubled by the seemingly politically laden relationship between the Court and the UN Security Council.

Julian also called attention to China’s “position paper” released ahead of its December 15th filing deadline in the situation between China and the Philippines before the UNCLOS arbitral tribunal. He also pointed to his more in-depth analysis of why the Philippines arbitration is doomed to fail (spoiler alert: it’s due to a mistake by the Philippines in employing a “lawfare strategy” forcing China before the arbitral tribunal), notwithstanding Vietnam’s support of the Philippines’ position. Finally in sea-worthy news, Julian pointed to the newest (sci-fi) development for the US Navy in the Persian Gulf: the planned deployment of laser cannons.

Rounding out the contributions from our regular bloggers, Duncan paid homage to his mentor, the late Professor Alfred P. Rubin, referring to him as the best professor he has ever had.

We posted Eric Sigmund’s guest contribution, a response to Kevin’s previous questioning of why US courts don’t understand IHL, remarking that the courts’ misunderstanding of IHL is deeper than you’d think.

Finally, I wrapped up the week’s news and listed events and announcements.

Thanks go out to our guest contributor and have a nice weekend!

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• The International Criminal Court has withdrawn charges of crimes against humanity against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, a decision met with mixed reaction.
• Suspected rebels stabbed and hacked to death at least a dozen people in a village in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday, a local government official said, in the latest in a series of attacks on civilians.
• Kenya’s police squads have admitted for the first time to carrying out extrajudicial killings. Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, the officers discussed their involvement in the Kenyan government’s assassination program targeting suspected Muslim radicals.
• Nigeria detained a Russian cargo plane and its French-speaking crew on Saturday after it made an unauthorised landing in the northern city of Kano with military hardware bound for neighbouring Chad, a security source said.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Israel’s military said it had opened eight new criminal investigations into its Gaza war operations, including cases involving the deaths of 30 Palestinians.
• The Syrian government has been accused of using chlorine gas against the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the latest allegations of chemical weapons use in the country’s bitter conflict.
• Syrian state television said on Sunday that Israeli jets had bombed areas near Damascus international airport and in the town of Dimas, near the border with Lebanon.
• U.S. special forces stormed a walled compound in a remote Yemeni village early on Saturday in an attempt to free Western hostages held by an al Qaeda unit, but an American journalist and a South African teacher were killed by their captors, officials said.

Asia

• China’s foreign ministry rebuked the U.S. Congress on Monday after legislators passed a bill allowing the sale of second-hand warships to Taiwan, the self-ruled island which Beijing claims as a renegade province.
• The United States will keep up to 1,000 more soldiers than previously planned in Afghanistan into next year, outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Saturday, in a recognition of the still formidable challenge from Taliban insurgents.

Europe

• Spanish rescue teams said they had called off their search for more than 20 migrants who fell off their boat into the Mediterranean on Friday.
• Britain has signed a landmark deal with Bahrain that will bolster the UK’s military presence in the Persian Gulf and give it a permanent naval base in the area more than forty years after it withdrew from the region.
• Anti-Semitic threats and incidents have more than doubled so far this year in France, said the interior minister at a rally on Sunday to protest a violent attack on a young Jewish couple.
• France said on Friday it had agreed to put $60 million into a fund managed by the United States to compensate Holocaust victims deported by French state rail firm SNCF to Nazi death camps, a deal that protects it from future U.S. litigation.

Americas

• After months of delay, the United States completed the transfers of six detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Uruguay.
• A long-awaited Senate report condemning torture by the CIA has not even been made public yet, but former President George W. Bush’s team has decided to link arms with former intelligence officials and challenge its conclusions.

Oceania

• Australia has introduced controversial temporary visas for refugees and asylum seekers in a move aimed at tightening immigration laws.

UN/World

• Relatives of MH17 crash victims, angered by what they see as Dutch mishandling of inquiries into the disaster, want a special U.N. envoy to launch an international investigation.
• Two-thirds of the U.N. Security Council’s members pushed on Friday for the human rights situation in North Korea to be added to the council’s agenda and for a formal meeting to be held this month, a move that cannot be blocked by Pyongyang ally China.
• Opium poppy cultivation in the heroin-producing ‘Golden Triangle’ – the area adjoining Myanmar, Laos and Thailand – has nearly tripled since 2006, according to a new UNODC report.