General

Weekly News Wrap: Monday, April 11, 2016

Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa In Mozambique, despite improvements in education access, many rural children are still pressed into work to supplement family income. The Nigerian government denies reports of $50 million ransom from Boko Haram for release of Chibok girls. As revelations from the Panama papers rock the world of politics and...

Friends Don’t Let Friends Torture: Comment on Youssef v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

[Matthew Sands is a Legal Advisor with the Geneva based NGO, Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) the full judgment on this case is available here.] In late January, the UK Supreme Court published its judgment in the case of Youssef. In 2005, Mr. Youssef had been suspected of involvement in terrorist-related activity, and Egypt had requested the UN sanctions committee...

Daesh and the Duty to Prevent Genocide

[John Heieck is the Lecturer of Public International Law at the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies.] On 17 March 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that ‘Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims. Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions, in what...

Weekly News Wrap: Monday, April 4, 2016

Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Democratic Republic of Congo said late on Friday that it has received allegations of sexual abuse against Tanzanian peacekeepers based in Congo's northeast, the latest in a series of such accusations against U.N. forces. The United Nations Security Council asked U.N. Secretary-General...

Weekly News Wrap: Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The European Union plans to cut back its funding for Burundi's lucrative peacekeeping contingent in Somalia to try to force President Pierre Nkurunziza into talks with opponents and away from the brink of ethnic conflict, diplomatic sources said. Burundi's ruling party has accused Rwandan president Paul Kagame...

US House of Representatives Overwhelmingly Calls for War Crimes Tribunal for Syria (with Jurisdiction to Try Americans, Apparently)

[Patrick Wall is studying for an LL.M. in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, as the Sir Ninian Stephen Menzies Scholar in International Law.] Last Monday, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed—by 392 votes to 3—a resolution ‘[e]xpressing the sense of the Congress condemning the gross violations of international law amounting to war crimes...

Responding to Steve Vladeck and Charlie Savage on Garland

Thanks to Steve Vladeck for the thoughtful post over at Just Security about his take on Garland’s record on Guantanamo cases and related matters. Steve, like Charlie Savage in the Times, is in one sense far more critical of Garland than I. I say “in one sense” because, before jumping back into the details here, it seems apparent we’re all applying somewhat different metrics here in assessing that record, some I fear more problematic than others.

Weekly News Wrap: Monday, March 21, 2016

Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa A former Congolese vice-president becomes the most senior political leader ever to face judgment before the International Criminal Court on Monday, when judges rule on whether he committed war crimes in the Central African Republic (CAR). The judgment will be handed down at 14:00 (CET) and...

Worried About Garland’s National Security Law Record? Don’t Be.

On the hopeful assumption the Senate will come to its senses and consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court on its merits, I wanted to respond to what appears to be some skepticism among progressives that Garland is indeed a good choice for the Court. The Huffington Post, for instance, published an article following the nomination headlined (ominously) that Garland once sided with the Bush Administration on Guantanamo. I was curious, so I decided to look up the cases.