After a over a week of negotiations, Mali has reached a ceasefire agreement with the Tuareg rebels who have occupied the northern city of Kidal. The UK Supreme Court has held that sanctions imposed on the Iranian Bank Mellat are invalid because they were imposed through a secret court. The US Treasure Department has strongly criticized the decision. Britain's attempt to include...
“Of course our opinions do not coincide. But all of us have the intention to stop the violence in Syria,” President Putin said after meeting with President Obama at the G8 summit. A neat summary of the dilemma of responsibility to protect—everyone wants an end to violence, but responsibility does not suggest how it should be done. Responsibility to protect emphasizes...
President Obama is in Berlin today where he will give a speech arguing for sharp reductions in nuclear warheads and more cooperation on other important challenges such as climate change and democracy. The US will start negotiations with the Taleban in Qatar later this week. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's President Karzai has suspended negotiations with the US on a security pact, accusing the...
In my last post, I introduced my recent article rethinking the concept of responsibility to protect. Today, I consider how the discussion of R2P often obscures the reality of how states go about choosing to intervene by speaking of duties and responsibilities. Some commentators have expressed concern about the selective nature of R2P or about the disappointment of R2P in...
ICJ Judge Giorgio Gaja (who was also the special rapporteur on the International Law Commission for the Responsibility of International Organizations) has made the case that International Organizations have a duty to prevent. The context was a talk he gave at the University of Amsterdam in April 2013 on the European Union and the ILC's Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. If one takes...
Brazil is experiencing its biggest wave of protests in decades over a wide variety of grievances, ahead of a range of high-profile international events in the next few years. Russia and Iran have warned against intervention in Syria and oppose the arming of Syrian rebels. Syrian President Assad has warned Europe that it will pay the price for arming the rebels in...
The members of the G8 are meeting in Northern Ireland this week. The meeting takes place amidst revelations that US and UK intelligence agencies spied on their allies during G20 meetings in London in 2009. The latest round of climate change talks concluded in Bonn on Friday. Earth Negotiations Bulletin has a detailed summary here. The Armed Groups and International Law Blog...
This week on Opinio Juris, there was a lot of news to cover with NSA leak and the US administration's decision to arm Syrian rebels. On the first, Julian thought Hong Kong was a dumb choice of refuge for the NSA leaker. Chris dug deeper into domestic data-mining with earlier stories about the NSA's activities. Peter addressed the position of expat...
The White House’s recent statement that it would begin supplying Syrian rebels with arms demonstrates how military assistance and intervention remain a choice of states rather than an obligation. Recent events confirm the arguments I make in a recent article The Choice to Protect: Rethinking Responsibility for Humanitarian Intervention. I am pleased to be guest blogging about this topic over...
Opinio Juris is pleased to welcome Professor Neomi Rao of George Mason University School of Law as guest-blogger for the next week. With the Syria crisis re-emerging as a possible flashpoint for military intervention, we thought it would be interesting for Professor Rao to discuss her recent work on the status and impact of the "Responsibility to Protect" principle that is...
The deadline for submitting your proposal has arrived! A reminder that June 14 is the last day you can submit a proposal for the Mid-Year Research forum to be held in NYC from November 1-3 this year. This conference features works-in-progress by society members - it is a terrific way to workshop your research projects. Here is the call for...
The tendency in the United States is to think about cyberthreats exclusively in terms of US interests (a tendency I've certainly followed on more than one occasion). Hence, the extended attention to questions of whether and how Congress should regulate cybersecurity. But, of course, cyberspace -- and cyberthreats -- are global. Every nation is now faced with developing a strategy...
