Supporters of Bangladesh's largest Islamic party have clashed with police amid a nationwide strike called to protest against the death sentence awarded to one of its senior leaders for war crimes. A nun working with survivors of displacement and abuse by the Lord’s Resistance Army in a remote corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been awarded the world’s...
According to Reuters, the US is dropping hints that it will grant Omar al-Bashir a visa to travel the UN for the annual meeting of the General Assembly: A senior State Department official said Bashir would "not receive a warm welcome" if he were to travel to the U.N. meeting. The official said Bashir had applied for a visa to attend...
UN investigators found "clear and convincing evidence'' that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in an attack last month in Syria that killed hundreds of people though the report did not say who launched the attack in rebel-held Damascus suburbs. Kenya is canvassing support for a possible walk-out by African states from the ICC, whose prosecution of elected Kenyan leaders has revived accusations on the...
Does anyone have a copy of Bin Cheng's article "International Law in the United Nations," 8 Yearbook of World Affairs 170 (1954)? It's not available online, and our library doesn't have that journal...
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power and the U.S. State Department are using unequivocal language to condemn Sudan's President Omar Bashir's application for a visa to attend the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York. But this tough talk is probably just hot air, since it is likely the U.S. is going to grant him the visa. Here is...
UN chemical weapons inspectors have handed their report into an alleged gas attack in Syria to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Secretary Ban stated in a UN meeting that an expert team's report will likely confirm the use of chemical weapons in the August 21 attack on Damascus. At PhD Studies in Human Rights, a post discusses Secretary Ban's comments and the...
On both twitter and the blog, readers seem to have inferred from my previous post that I'm somehow disappointed that the US-Russia chemical-weapons deal does not automatically allow force for noncompliance. I suppose that's my fault; I tend to assume when I write that readers have at least some prior knowledge of my politics. So let me be clear: I am...
That's the tally in light of the deal that has been reached regarding Syria's chemical weapons. The US position was that any agreement had to permit the use of force against Syria in case of noncompliance. But the US-Russian deal simply calls for the Security Council to consider the consequences of noncompliance under Chapter VII; it does not commit the...
Apparently not, because yesterday's war propaganda editorial by Sebastian Junger beating the drum for attacking Syria is just spectacularly awful. I've been out of the fisking game for a while, but the editorial simply can't pass unmentioned. Every war I have ever covered — Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Liberia — withstood all diplomatic efforts to end it until Western military action...
Can anyone point me toward a good discussion -- historical and/or theoretical, preferably both -- of the ability (or inability) of the Security Council to adopt resolutions that are binding on states that are not members of the UN?...
Andrew Cayley, the co-international prosecutor, has resigned effective next week: British national Andrew Cayley told VOA that it was no secret he was planning to resign this year, but said he was leaving now for personal and professional reasons. He did not elaborate and said his resignation will not affect the ongoing prosecutions under his authority. Cayley’s departure, which is effective September...
