Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

At its core, the case raises questions of corporate power, double standards, and the pursuit of accountability for those who enable or profit from grave human rights abuses in Syria and beyond. According to the French investigating judges, Lafarge transferred via its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS) more than five million euros to the Islamic State (IS), the al-Nusra Front, and Ahrar al-Sham during 2013 – 2014, in order to continue running its cement factory in northeastern Syria.  The upcoming criminal trial represents a turning point in the nine-year-long legal...

the 2011 uprising started in Syria, both Syrian and international actors advanced the transitional justice paradigm to accompany the hoped-for transition. When the perspective of a transition vanished, Syrian civil society continued to use the paradigm to pursue justice in a situation where impunity increasingly seems the norm. The international community did not only fail to stop the regime’s and Russia’s policies of annihilation, but it also proved to be unsuccessful to open justice avenues to prosecute crimes committed in Syria. Syrian and international civil society organizations have resisted the...

The U.S. government has been making all sorts of official and unofficial threats to act if the Syrian government uses chemical weapons in its ongoing civil war. (CBS News) Whether the U.S. enters the war in Syria appears to be up to the dictator Bashir al-Assad. On Monday, CBS News reported the Assad regime had given orders to prepare chemical weapons for possible use to put down the revolt that has been raging for more than a year and a half. President Obama said use of these weapons of mass...

...intentional commission of a “violent attack upon the official premises, the private accommodation or the means of transport of an internationally protected person likely to endanger his person or liberty,” regardless of where that attack takes place. Despite the presence of objectionable characters therein, the consular building which Israel hit housed the residence of Iran’s ambassador to Syria on its top two floors. A nonconsensual Israeli air strike on Syrian territory also contravenes the UN Charter’s Article 2(4) prohibition on the use of force in interstate relations, subject to Security...

of the Charter system and, in particular, the right to veto of the P5 once more. Even outside the Charter rules, prohibitions under customary international law have been weakened. State practice in relation to Libya and Syria suggests that States deviate from established obligations in relation to the prohibition of the use of force, in particular in view of the delivery of arms to Libyan and Syrian rebels. The Paris terror attacks 2015 have perhaps again decisively raised the question whether the state-centred ius ad bellum is fit to deal...

...pull the state to account, and even provide policy tools to respond to the emergency.  This introduction opens the symposium on Advisory Opinion AO-32/25 on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights. It sets a program for sustained, diverse, and rigorous debate on the opinion’s implications, legal significance, and next steps. In this first phase, eight Latin American scholars examine core legal questions raised by AO-32/25. Their essays supply a baseline for further engagement and invite refinement, contestation, and alternative doctrinal or implementation proposals.  In this contribution, I provide a concise...

[Curtis Bradley is the William Van Alstyne Professor of Law at Duke Law School.] I want to give my sincere thanks to the eight contributors who commented on my book this week as part of the Opinio Juris online symposium: David Moore, Jean Galbraith, Julian Ku, Kristina Daugirdas, Bill Dodge, Mark Weisburd, Mike Ramsey, and Ingrid Wuerth. Each of these contributors offered valuable feedback on aspects of the book, and I am extremely grateful for their insightful observations. The book covers a wide range of topics concerning the role of...

On behalf of all of us at Opinio Juris, I am pleased to annouce that the first annual Opinio Juris on-line symposium, “Challenges to Public International Law,” will be held this fall. The details below will be posted on our sidebar for future reference. Opinio Juris Online Symposium 2006: Challenges to Public International Law Theme Statement As long as people have been writing about public international law, commentators have suggested that it is a system in crisis or somehow under stress. After a moment of optimism at the end of...

been an honor to co-organize this symposium with Opinio Juris, guided by our belief that open dialogue and collective reflection are vital to advancing women’s equal leadership. In this concluding post, we aim to highlight key insights from the rich contributions and chart a hopeful path for action.  Despite Progress, Gender Equality in International Leadership is Still Several Glass Ceilings Away The symposium makes it undeniable that the underrepresentation of women in international spaces remains a systemic issue across key fields such as international justice, peace and security, climate negotiations,...

Over the coming week, along with Armed Groups and International Law, we are thrilled to co-host a symposium on Compliance in Armed Conflict: New Avenues to Generate Respect for Humanitarian Norms. Scholars and practitioners who will be weighing in include: Ezequiel Heffes and Ioana Cismas (co-organizers of the symposium), Emiliano Buis, Katharine Fortin, Hyeran Jo, Fiona Terry, Ahmed Al-Dawoody, Jonathan Zaragoza, Yolvi Padilla, Chris Rush, Mohamed Assaleh, Louise Sloan, Ibrahim Salama, Michael Wiener, Nontando Hadebe, Annyssa Bellal, Pascal Bongard, Melina Fidelis-Tzourou, Anki Sjöberg and Anne Schintgen. As this is a co-hosted...

...post is the first in a series of blogs ] That the effectiveness of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) faces challenges from different quarters is not news. It is, rather, an observation that has been made by scholars and practitioners alike – to the point of tritness. Whilst we deeply acknowledge the importance of discussing the manifold challenges to humanitarian norms in times of armed conflict – not least because tailored strategies must be designed to address them – this Symposium also serves another purpose:...

...esteemed scholars and practitioners were willing to take part in this joint Opinio Juris and EJIL:Talk! symposium and offer their responses to arguments put forward in my article for the current issue of EJIL, giving me and other readers refinements and additions that will enrich the larger conversation of which this symposium is a part. The six commentators raise many issues, which I will address under three broad headings of power, history, and method. Each also brings to their paper a certain optimism or pessimism about what the future may...