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...
Once again, the invaluable tumblr International Relations as Depicted by Cats captures my position perfectly. ...
There are growing signs of opposition in the U.S. Congress to the Obama Administration's plans to strike Syria. Over 116 Congressmen (98 Republicans, 18 Democrats) signed a letter rejecting the administration's (Harold Koh) interpretation of the War Powers Act in the Libya case, and demanding that the President seek Congress's authorization for any strike. Here is a link to the...
I've been distracted the last few days by all this Syria stuff (and a nasty case of poison ivy), so I neglected to keep up with the latest on that Philippines-China UNCLOS arbitration now seated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Luckily, Luke Petersen of Investment Arbitration Reporter is on the case and has this great post...
http://youtu.be/HRIF4_WzU1w Fifty years ago today, on the morning of August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King looked out from his suite at the Willard Hotel as crowds began mulling around the Washington monument. He had stayed up until four in the morning drafting and redrafting his speech. As King looked on, his aides were furiously typing the finished draft for...
Just a note to highlight OJ's Twitter feed, which you can find here. We link to posts on the blog, but there's added content in the form of pointers to other items that might be of interest to OJ readers. For those of you that haven't taken up the habit, some serious material is floating around the Twitterverse at the same time...
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...
An interesting discussion recently broke out on twitter about whether the Security Council could refer the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons -- and only the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons -- to the ICC. Instead of breaking my thoughts into 60 tweets or so, I thought I'd be old-fashioned and write a blog post instead. The issue raises a...
[Travel and other expenses related to my participation in the "100 Years Peace Palace" program provided by the Government of the Netherlands and Radio Netherlands Worldwide.] It is a bit surreal to be attending programs commemorating 100 years of the Peace Palace on a day when the news is filled with the possibility of US military intervention in Syria. Kevin and Julian have...
[Matiangai Sirleaf is a Sharswood Fellow, University of Pennsylvania Law School. B.A. New York University; M.A. University of Ghana-Legon; J.D. Yale Law School] The knee-jerk reaction to institute formal transitional institutions like trials or truth commissions following massive violence needs to be seriously rethought. For one, it is not evident that societies recovering from mass atrocity will undoubtedly want to pursue...
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...
Yes, the title is intended to be provocative. And yes, I think chemical weapons are indeed terrible. But statements like this -- offered by John Kerry in thinly-veiled support for using military force against the Syrian government -- still give me pause (emphasis mine): What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any...
