Yes, according to Secretary of State John Kerry: Secretary of State John Kerry told House Democrats that the United States faced a “Munich moment” in deciding whether to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. In a 70-minute conference call on Monday afternoon, Kerry derided Syrian President Bashar Assad as a “two-bit dictator” who will “continue to...
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...
[Mark Kersten is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of the blog Justice in Conflict. You can find him on Twitter @MarkKersten] Who would have thought that the most pressing question regarding the Responsibility to Protect in 2013 would be: what is it? The answer to this question is as unclear today as any time in R2P's...
Although it is sometimes hard to remember, there are things going on in the world that are unrelated to the looming U.S.-Syria conflict. And although I have lots of thoughts on Syria, I wanted to point folks to some other news. Japan is threatening to take Korea to the ICJ as a result of a Korean court has upholding compensation to...
[Ezequiel Heffes and Brian E. Frenkel are LL.M. candidates at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and Teaching Assistants of Public International Law at the University of Buenos Aires, School of Law. This post reflects partial conclusions of our ongoing research at the University of Buenos Aires’s Law School as members of the project “Beyond the...
[Otto Spijkers is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Utrecht University] It is interesting to compare the obligations of States at the international level with the obligations of individuals at the national level. Such a comparison is also interesting when it comes to the obligations of other States to intervene in Syria. In this post I will suggest some lessons...
[Stephanie Carvin is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She is the author of "Prisoners of America's Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo" (Hurst/Columbia 2010) and co-author of the forthcoming "Between Annihilation and Restraint: Law, Science Liberalism and the American Way of Warfare" (Cambridge University Press) with MJ Williams.] I have...
[Charles Kels is a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. His views do not reflect those of the Department of Homeland Security, Air Force or Defense.] From a U.S. perspective, the core issue with a Syrian intervention is the interplay between international and constitutional law. Specifically, to what extent does satisfying...
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....
Doesn't sound like it, if you read between the lines of this AP account. Until Friday, everyone was assuming that congressional pre-clearance was not constitutionally required or otherwise warranted. Obama's national security team was in agreement that while consulting with Congress was critical, there was no need for formal approval, officials said. Seeking a vote in Congress to authorize a strike...
As an adherent of the view that the Constitution requires congressional approval before the President can use military force (other than in certain circumstances of national self defense), I think the President’s decision to seek authorization from Congress was legally required. While Marty is right that presidential practice has at times been otherwise, I don’t think that practice should...
[Marty Lederman is a Professor at Georgetown Law School and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, and an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994-2002. This is the second part of a two-part posting.] In my previous post, I explained that the difficult and unresolved constitutional question has (thankfully) been avoided—at...
