Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
13 Sep Does the Washington Post Editorial Page Have ANY Standards Left?
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 —...
05 Dec Russia’s Attack on Kafr Nabl Surgical Hospital and the Role of Open Source Information in Building a Case for Legal Accountability
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...
08 Oct Trump vs. International Law: Using Force After Conflict–Is the Jus ad Bellum Relevant or Just an Afterthought?
or appropriate as a course of action? If the United States maintains a military presence in Syria after the end of the conflict with ISIS, the only possible basis could be self-defense: Syria has not consented to the U.S. military currently being in or remaining in Syria and the U.N. Security Council has not authorized and is unlikely to authorize a multinational operation in Syria. Can self-defense be a justification for a state to use force to prevent the resurgence of conflict? Or to deny a safe haven to terrorist...
27 Jul Sleight-of-Hand on Palestine at the League of Nations: How the alteration of a verb tense “legalized” Britain’s mandate
...the Palestine mandate on a consideration separate from that of title. France was refusing to allow the Council to deal with Britain’s claim until the Council would consider its claim to a mandate for Syria. The Syria mandate, however, was being delayed because Italy, another Council member, objected to certain provisions of the document France had drafted to govern Syria. A year earlier, the Council had said that the two mandates could take effect simultaneously once France and Italy came to agreement on the Syria mandate document. At the Council’s...
26 May 40 years’ Worth of Footage from Syria Alone: Global Documentation Requires Commensurate Global Justice
[Jeff Deutch, PhD, is Research Director at Mnemonic and co-founder of Syrian Archive. Libby McAvoy, Esq., is a legal fellow with Mnemonic and the Video as Evidence program at WITNESS.] Photo credit: Syrian Archive. Whether in Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Hong Kong, Myanmar, the United States, Nigeria, Brasil, or elsewhere, over the last ten years civil society actors have produced and shared more content documenting human rights violations than ever before in human history. Encouraged by domestic courts and international accountability mechanisms, the ask to activists and human rights defenders is...08 May Dr. Mohamed Helal’s Defense of Russia’s Syria Vetoes & Power Politics – A Rejoinder to His Criticism of My Post
he claims that, in relationship to the situation in Syria, the Permanent Members “have exercised the veto exactly as anticipated when the UN Charter was negotiated.” In fact, current practice is far removed from the substance of the 1945 negotiations. Examining each of Russia’s 12 vetoes (sometimes joined by China) related to Syria, we see vetoes of resolutions to: (1) condemn continued widespread and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms (draft resolution S/2011/612); (2) condemn bombing and shelling of population centers and condemn the detention of thousands in...
27 Jul Holding Transnational Corporations Accountable for International Crimes in Syria: Update on the Developments in the Lafarge Case (Part II)
...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...
29 Sep On the Anvil: The Netherlands v. Syrian Arab Republic at the International Court of Justice?
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...21 Oct Turkey’s Operation “Peace Spring” and International Law
[ Vito Todeschini is an Associate Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists’ MENA Programme] On 9 October 2019, Turkey launched operation “Peace Spring” in the territory known as Rojava, in north-east Syria. The operation aimed at driving the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) out of a number of towns close to the Turkish border and to create a “safe zone” where to resettle Syrian refugees. After days of fighting, a United States-brokered ceasefire has temporarily halted major hostilities in view of the evacuation...08 May Charlie Dunlap’s Defence of Israel’s Attacks on Hezbollah in Syria
Last week, Asaf Lubin offered a compelling post at Just Security wondering why Israel’s repeated attacks on Hezbollah arms shipments in Syria have not received the same kind of jus ad bellum scrutiny as the US’s recent attack on a Syrian airfield. Today, Charles Dunlap provides his answer on the same blog: the Israeli attacks are clearly legal, so why would anyone scrutinise them? Here are the relevant paragraphs: [I]t appears to me that the Israeli strike sought to destroy weapons in transit before Hezbollah can burrow them into densely-populated...