[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] The background to a series of Opinio Juris posts about proper use of Security Council veto power is: I have posted attacking the legality of Russia’s veto in the face of chemical weapons use in Syria, Dr. Mohamed Helal has defended Russia’s veto use as consistent with the drafting...
We have published a series of fascinating posts in recent days debating whether the permanent members of the Security Council have a legal obligation under the UN Charter not to veto resolutions calling for the investigation or prosecution of atrocity crimes. Jennifer Trahan argued yes; Mohamed Helal responded no; and Trahan replied yes again. I am not convinced by Trahan's response...
[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] In his Opinio Juris post on May 4, Dr. Mohamed Helal provides a defense of Russia’s veto use related to the situation in Syria, one that he defends as in line with the negotiations of the UN Charter and a vision of veto power of the permanent members of...
On Thursday, May 10, the US Supreme Court will decide whether to grant cert in Budha Ismail Jam v. International Financial Corporation(IFC), a case involving environmental damage arising from a coal fired power plant in India. Two excellent blogs on the case written by Rishi Gulati in 2017 can be found here. The case turns on the interpretation of a US...
[David Hughes and Yahli Shereshevsky are Grotius Research Scholars at Michigan Law School.] Western forces have again attacked Syria following the suspected use of chemical weapons by the al-Assad regime. As in 2013 and 2017, international lawyers largely agree that the recent US, French, and British-led operation is illegal. Yet the recent strikes against chemical weapons facilities in Damascus and Homs are...
[Dr. Mohamed Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law & Affiliated Faculty at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University.] On April 10, 2018, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution drafted by the United States that would have created a mechanism to investigate the use of chemical weapons against civilians...
I had the pleasure of participating yesterday in a superb -- and long! -- panel on the 2013 siege of Eastern Ghouta. The panel discussed the facts, the law, and the politics of the siege. I was joined by Hussam Alkatlaby, the Executive Director of the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre; Joost Hiltermann, programme director for Middle East & North Africa at...
[Christiane Ahlborn and Bart Smit Duijzentkunst are Associate Legal Officers at the Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in New York. This post, and its sister post on EJIL:Talk!, mark the start of the seventieth session of the International Law Commission. Under the theme “70 years of the International Law Commission: Drawing a Balance for the Future”,...
[Matt Pollard is a Senior Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva, Switzerland.] The Canadian Parliament is currently considering Bill C-262, “An Act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. The draft legislation is a “private member’s bill” introduced by an individual Member...
[Karolína Babická is a Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurist’s Europe Programme.] European Union (EU) law has in the last two decades shaped and to some extent also harmonized national legislation governing asylum and migration in EU member states. This month, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has once again set out the very strict limits...
I like much of what Jennifer Trahan says in her recent post about the permanent veto. But I would take issue -- unsurprisingly -- with her claim that "there is in fact more past precedent for reliance on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention than is often recognized, including not only NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo, but also African and Arab...
[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] On April 13, the US, UK and France launched a barrage of missiles at three chemical weapons-related sites in Syria, in response to the most recent attack in Douma, part of a long series of chemical weapons attacks, attributed to the regime. The UK has set forth its legal position...
