13 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council met yesterday to address LGBT issues for the first time in a closed session chaired by Chile and the US. The focus was on persecution of gays in Syria and Iraq. As an Arria-formula meeting, the discussion was confidential, however news reports after indicate the group discussed the Islamic State’s...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Suspected Boko Haram militants ambushed a convoy carrying Nigeria's chief of army staff on a tour of towns in troubled Borno state, the army said early on Sunday. Middle East and Northern Africa The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has blown up a 2,000-year-old temple...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has arrived in Addis Ababa for peace talks aimed at brokering an end to the country's civil war, reversing an earlier decision as international threats of possible sanctions mount. Fraught with logistic and security concerns journalists have struggled to report on Boko Haram's...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Somalia's Puntland region needs more help from the central government and the African Union to fight al Shabaab militants, especially equipment and ammunition, the president of the semi-autonomous region has said. Suspected Boko Haram gunmen killed four people on Sunday in a road ambush in Nigeria's restive northeastern...
Today, the American Psychological Association formally voted to end their enrollment in national security interrogations. This would seem to finally put an end to the organization's involvement in post-9/11 torture against security detainees. The vote comes on the heels of the Hoffman Report, which was prepared by attorney David Hoffman of Sidley Austin LLP. Hoffman was hired by the APA to...
As others have already noted, D.C. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth held last week that because “fighting continues” between U.S., Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo may still be detained under the domestic statute (AUMF) authorizing their detention. I’ve written here and elsewhere about the propriety of the underlying legal theory in...
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama has authorized U.S. military forces to use air power to defend U.S.-trained Syrian rebels if those rebels are attacked by the Syrian government forces. President Barack Obama has authorized using air power to defend a new U.S.-backed fighting force in Syria if it is attacked by Syrian government forces or other groups,...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Nigeria's army says it has rescued 178 people held by the Boko Haram group in Nigeria's Borno state in raids that destroyed several camps in the country's northeast. At least one soldier with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic was killed on Sunday during clashes with...
Anna, who has guest-blogged for us in an academic capacity on a number of occasions (see here, here, and here), has just started a new job as Georgia's Deputy Minister for Defence. See if you can spot her in this photo: Heartfelt congratulations to Anna. Academia's loss is Georgia's gain. I have no doubt that she will do exemplary work on behalf of...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The Somali militant Islamist group al Shabaab attacked a Mogadishu hotel on Sunday, driving a car packed with explosives through the hotel gate and killing at least 13 people, a first responder and the rebel group said. The European Union is ready to impose sanctions on Burundians failing...
As the fighting in Ukraine continues into its second year, recent reports have variously focused on the promise of a weapons withdrawal and the risk that there is the opening of a new front opening. Recent international legal scholarship has attempted to frame the conflict within the context of international law and consider topics such as issues of legality and...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Hissene Habre, the former leader of Chad once described as "Africa's Pinochet" by Human Rights Watch (HRW), is about to face trial in Senegal over the alleged political killings of thousands of people during his time in power. Malian masons have rebuilt eight mausoleums destroyed by Islamist militants...
