With UN meetings underway, here are a couple of links discussing leading issues on the table. Everyone agrees that Syria leads the list, but pretty much everyone also agrees that it leads the list of things unlikely to be resolved or pushed materially to a resolution. Neal MacFarquhar, the NYT UN correspondent, puts it this way in today's Times, quoting...
Leaders of Sudan and South Sudan met late Sunday to discuss borders and oil exports peace negotiations between the two countries have not yet finalized, with a breakthrough in security negotiations not yet reached. Syria's internal opposition met in Damascus amid airstrikes calling for a cessation of hostilities. A day after China called off celebrations on the 40th anniversary of Japanese-Chinese relations, it has...
After a blogging hiatus over the summer due to some family medical issues - all happily resolved - I am moving back to posting on a regular basis. I've missed posting and hanging out with the OJ community online. I've been only fitfully been following posts here, or for that matter most of the global news, and I've decided not...
Upcoming Events Fordham will organize a debate entitled Executive Power and Civil Liberties: Debating Obama’s Targeted Killing Program on September 24, 2012 at 6pm, between Martin S. Flaherty and Jack Goldsmith, and moderated by William M. Treanor. Registration is requested. The Florida Children and Youth Cabinet Human Trafficking Summit will be hosted in Tallahassee, Florida on September 24, 2012. The summit is bringing together...
This week on Opinio Juris, we posted Harold Koh's speech on international law in cyberspace, delivered earlier this week, as part of our efforts to make important international law speeches more readily available. The decision by the Obama administration to requalify the tragic events in Libya on September 11 as a terrorist attack rather than a spontaneous reaction provides a further basis,...
[Robyn Curnow is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland. She works as a lawyer in Melbourne.] Reactions to the prosecution and sentencing of three members of Pussy Riot in August this year have revealed sharp disparities in the ways different countries’ legal systems protect peoples’ religious sensibilities. What they have also exposed is a spectrum...
Just in case you are not yet convinced that the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies are actually worse than the Bush administration's: The officials said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had made the decision to remove MEK from the list, and that it was expected to be formally announced in coming days. The State Department said that Clinton sent a classified communication...
A Syrian airstrike has killed at least 54 amid heavy fighting in northern Syria. At a UN Security Council meeting, Iran was attacked about the aid it is providing to Syria's government forces. At the IAEA's meeting in Geneva, Iran and Israel squared off about nuclear proliferation in the Middle East region. The US has lifted a ban on New Zealand naval ships...
As things continue to get ugly between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, the U.S. has tried to stay out of the way. Still, although the U.S. has tried to stay neutral on the territorial dispute, it appears the U.S. is obligated by treaty to defend any incursion by China into the Senkaku/Diaoyu. From Article V of the U.S.-Japan...
The former owners of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, whose sale to the Japanese government has unleashed hundreds of violent anti-Japan protests across China, are calling for Japan to send the dispute to the International Court of Justice. China is very outspoken about its position over the Senkaku Islands, but Japan has its own position as well, and it needs to get that...
The Obama Administration appears to have shifted its views on the nature of the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that resulted in the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Rather than blaming the attack on a "spontaneous" reaction to the offensive US film (which U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice seemed...
Amnesty International reports that Syrian civilians are under "relentless" and "indiscriminate" attacks from Syrian forces. In news about the anti-Islam flim, The Innocence of Muslims, Saudi Arabia has demanded that YouTube shut down access to the film within its borders; an actress in the film is suing the director and YouTube for fraud, slander, and intentional infliction of emotional distress; UN Secretary...
