Residents in northeast Nigeria say at least 13 vigilantes and five Boko Haram members have been killed after the group launched attacks on the town of Benisheik. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied that he was behind a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people, as the White House pressed ahead with the effort of persuading Congress to approve a military strike to punish...
Syria dominated (and continues to dominate) the headlines this week, and we featured many takes on the developing situation through our Syria Insta-Symposium. From our regular contributors, Julian pondered whether President Obama would reveal the international law justification on his position regarding intervention in Syria and Kevin questioned US Secretary of State John Kerry's classification of Syria as the United States' "Munich...
According to the Philippines' top diplomat, China plans to occupy a disputed chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea to expand its territory before regional rules on maritime behavior come into effect. Justice must run its course in the cases against Kenya's president and deputy president, according to ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, ahead of a vote in Kenya's parliament on whether...
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the US has agreed upon a draft AUMF, authorizing President Obama to carry out strikes in Syria. Foreign Policy has a post warning that this 60-day authorization may be just a prelude to intervention in the Middle East as well as a piece entitled The Syrian Abyss. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country may approve...
The UN chemical weapons inspection team in Syria is set to begin transferring samples that it has collected from the country to the laboratories for testing. More than 2 million refugees have now fled Syria's civil war, piling pressure on neighboring host countries according to the UN. Sweden is set to change its asylum law and grant permanent residency to those...
Just as Syria has been our main focus the last few days with our Insta-Symposium, there has been a lot written elsewhere on the developing situation. Just a sampling of a couple other articles of note: one from William Schabas on intervention as aggression and one from Charli Carpenter urging us not to use the term "humanitarian" for this intervention....
Calls for Papers The University of Liege Law School will host Nudging Europe: What Can EU Law Learn From Behavioural Sciences? December 12-13, 2013. They have put out a call for papers for this event. Papers addressing the implications of behavioral sciences for contract law, competition law and risk regulation will be particularly welcome, but all areas of EU law are of interest. Where relevant,...
We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris over the next few days about the ongoing situation in Syria. We also are going to follow in our own footsteps from our Kiobel symposium, by inviting young academics and practitioners to submit guests posts for possible publication. We can’t guarantee we will publish every post submitted, but we...
The UK has put a proposed resolution before the Security Council on Syria calling for military action to protect civilians, perhaps delaying US action. China has also called for restraint and calm in the situation, saying any intervention in the region would only make the turmoil worse. Human Rights Watch has a statement on possible intervention in Syria calling on all...
On the day we mark 100 years of the Peace Palace in The Hague, the US and its allies are readying for a military intervention in Syria with Australia saying it would back military action, even without a Security Council resolution. Action may come within days. China's top paper accused the US of wanting regime change in Syria and likened any military...
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...
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,...
