Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

is required to bring some wars to an end. And yet there’s been little evidence of that sentiment in American opposition to missile strikes against military targets in Syria. Obama has specifically disclaimed any intention to end the Syrian civil war through military action. But whatever. Even after 1,400 Syrian civilians, including 400 children, were killed in a nerve gas attack that was in all likelihood carried out by government forces, the prospect of American military intervention has been met with a combination of short-sighted isolationism and reflex pacifism —...

Surgical Hospital in Idlib, Syria, on 5 May 2019. Two brothers died as a result of the attack, and the lives of approximately 30 people working in and using the hospital were endangered. Attacks of this type were, and are, a common feature of the conflict in Syria, to the extent that the UN Security Council issued a resolution calling for the protection of medical facilities. These attacks are widely documented online, and Syrian documenters have filmed and shared extensive footage of attacks on hospitals and their aftermath. On 1...

revulsion. So what’s his motivation? For reasons of his own, he must have decided that he was better off without chemical weapons than with them. Perhaps it has to do with the internal political situation in Syria. Or maybe Russia got fed up for some reason. But it’s a bit of a mystery, and not one that I’ve seen any plausible explanations for. I don’t think it’s a mystery at all. Here is the explanation: Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have firmly seized the momentum in the country’s...

to the International Criminal Court; and yet another relates to the critical role of fact-finding and evidence gathering, being undertaken by the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria and other actors. However, important as these are, I focus on the route that has been chosen by the Netherlands in this instance – that of the CAT and its potential application to the International Court of Justice. In its press statement, referencing a diplomatic note sent to the Syrian government, the Netherlands states: “The Netherlands has invoked Syria’s responsibility for...

...for the financing of a terrorist enterprise in Syria. In this part II, the authors analyze the decision of the French Court rescinding the charge of complicity in crimes against humanity and shed light on the broader significance of the Lafarge case in the field of criminal corporate accountability. Interpreting complicity: The cornerstone of criminal corporate accountability for grave crimes ECCHR and Sherpa filed extensive briefings in conjunction with the legal complaint outlining, first, the international consensus affirming that the atrocities perpetrated by IS at the time amounted to crimes...

day ends with Ramón Barreto Pirela looking into the right to a life project in the context of the film The Swimmers.  The symposium will conclude onFriday, starting with Michael Randall’s analysis of the ethics and morals of drone warfare in the films Good Kill and Eye in the Sky, followed by Maria Pilar Llorens’ and Silvina Sánchez Mera’s exploration of the Argentinean icon Mafalda’s TWAILer worldview.  The grand finale, though, is something special. Avid OJ readers may remember that back in 2021, during our first symposium, friend of the blog Nicolás Carrillo...

Opinio Juris is very pleased to host for the next few days an online symposium on Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule’s new book, Terror in the Balance recently published by Oxford University Press. The format for this symposium will be familiar to those who followed the symposium we held three weeks ago on Michael Ramsey’s book, The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs. We will begin with a few posts introducing the broad outlines of the book. We will then have comments from experts who will address various aspects of the...

...the treaty. This joint Asia Justice Coalition – Opinio Juris symposium is to introduce you to some key aspects of the negotiations and to provide you with a flavour of the fortnight of intense discussions in Ljubljana, that have resulted in the ‘Ljubljana – The Hague Convention’. A list of contributions is listed below, with links: Priya Pillai, Introducing a Symposium on Ljubljana – The Hague Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance: Critical Reflections Vaios Koutroulis, A New Tool in the Fight Against Impunity for Core International Crimes Raquel Saavedra and...

...the participants when the idea for this symposium materialized. Adding to this dept, commentators provided excellent reviews over the last week. In the following I seek to address some of their arguments being aware that exchange will continue beyond the symposium. Why are Emerging Powers not more radical? I am very grateful for Cai Congyan‘s remark that in his opinion my perspective departs from that of many Western scholars and instead of focusing on the threat emerging powers – and particularly China – may pose for a value-based international order,...

...Conflict/Opinio Juris symposium on the ICC Prosecutor, is dedicated to the memory of Felipe Michelini, Chair of the Board of Directors of the ICC’s Trust Fund for Victims, who passed away following a tragic accident as this piece was being finalized.] Introduction As Chairs of the ICC Assembly of States Parties Committee and Panel of Experts on the Election of the Prosecutor, we have read with interest the thoughtful articles in the recent symposium on “The Next ICC Prosecutor.” As the conveners rightly stressed in their introduction, “the choice of...

[Jed Odermatt is a Reader at The City Law School, City St George’s, University of London] Academic debates often begin with the assertion that international law is in a period of unique crisis. In the face of complex, wicked problems, from climate change to massive human rights abuses, international lawyers question whether international law’s toolkit remains fit for purpose. The responses are also familiar. International agreements should be better designed; states need to comply with their existing legal obligations; failing institutions need to be reformed. Aksenova’s Art,...

...practices of international criminal justice processes to advance their strategic agendas; and second, a critical perspective concerned with contextualising the historical narratives constructed within international criminal judgments and viewing them in more humble terms as moments of discursive beginning rather than instances of historical closure. Reflections on the Symposium Turning to the contributions to this symposium, I am grateful that each of the contributors has focused on different themes within the book. In this section, my aim is less to offer a response than to continue the conversation by offering...