Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
26 Nov Syria Avoids Security Council Sanctions, Agrees to Cooperate in Hariri Investigation
Syria has agreed to comply with the demands of Security Council resolution 1636 and will cooperate with the Hariri investigation by allowing five Syrian government officials to be interviewed in UN offices in Vienna. This ends, for now, the Syrian stalemate with the Council, and avoids a follow on resolution that would likely have slapped sanctions against Syria. The progress of the Mehlis team investigating the Hariri murder and the Security Council’s robust response is significant, fairly rebutting Julian’s view that UN investigations tend to produce “muddy, often useless conclusions.”...
04 Dec UNSC Veto Power Symposium: Reply to Professors Sterio and Clark, and Dr. McDougall
...by the duty (see the Bosnia v. Serbia Case, paras. 430–31). While I largely agree with Dr. McDougall’s statement that: “I do not believe [this duty] would be applicable to the situation in Syria,” that is beside the point. The book expressly notes the allegations of genocide in Syria relate to crimes against the Yazidis (p. 44; Chapter 5.1.3.5). The relevant arguments related to most crimes in Syria are those pertaining to war crimes and crimes against humanity. My book also discusses the situation in Myanmar, where the Genocide Convention...
03 Dec UNSC Veto Power Symposium: Mass Atrocities and the Security Council–The Limits of the Law
...the Assad regime, but also because States beyond Russia and China have concerns about more ambitious measures in terms of both the implications for State sovereignty, and the possibility that such assistance could strengthen the hand of different non-State armed actors. As Trahan acknowledges, accountability and humanitarian measures are unlikely to halt mass atrocities by themselves. In a situation such as Syria, it is difficult to see how that could be achieved absent a use of force. Military intervention in Syria has of course been only fleetingly considered: I’d argue...04 Oct Aryeh Neier Calls for Syria No-Fly Zone
Aryeh Neier, recently retired president of the Open Society Institute (and former head of Human Rights Watch and the ACLU), has an opinion piece in Project Ricochet this week calling for a no-fly zone over Syria. He calls for it to be imposed by a regional force and NATO. The US would not lead the effort, though presumably it would participate via NATO – while providing backup, both material and political, another exercise in deliberately “leading from behind.” He is cautious about the US intervening militarily directly, and frames the...
28 Jul Transnational ne bis in idem for Corporate Involvement in International Crimes: The Lafarge Proceedings in the U.S. and France
involved in atrocity. In France, the defendant corporation Lafarge and several of its executives are under investigation for criminal charges that include financing of a terrorist enterprise, complicity in crimes against humanity, and endangering the lives of others (‘the French Proceedings’). Meanwhile in the U.S, in a criminal plea deal with the Department of Justice on 18 October 2022, Lafarge and its Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (‘LCS’) admitted to entering into business arrangements with ISIL and ANF. On this basis, Lafarge and LCS agreed to pay a financial penalty...
26 Aug Rohingya Symposium: From Rhetoric to Justice–Ensuring a Gender Perspective in Accountability Proceedings for the Rohingya Genocide
...the way there were carried out, even where they vary significantly in the details; the separation of men and women, the subsequent fast killings of men and boys, and systematic sexual violence against women and girls. In 2016, in its analysis of the Yazidi genocide, “They Came to Destroy,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (“Syria COI”) found that “ISIS fighters systematically rape Yazidi women and girls as young as nine.” In 2018, in its analysis of the Rohingya genocide, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission...27 Sep HILJ Symposium: Ozan Varol Responds
[Ozan Varol is Assistant Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School.] This post is part of the Harvard International Law Journal Volume 53(2) symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. I would like to thank David Landau, William Partlett, Brad Roth, and Joel Colón-Ríos for their kind words and insightful comments about my article, The Democratic Coup d’Etat, 53 Harv. Int’l L.J. 291 (2012). These scholars have been instrumental in enhancing our knowledge of constitutional transitions, and I very much appreciate...
30 Jan Symposium in Remembrance of Judge Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade: The Legacy of Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade by Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant
To close this symposium on the life and work of Judge Cançado Trindade, the editors of Afronomicslaw, Opinio Juris and Agenda Estado de Derecho had the opportunity to interview the recently appointed and also Latin American Judge Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant in December 2022. The conversation focuses on the impact of Cançado Trindade’s scholarship, case law, individual opinions, and his legacy for international law. Also, the challenges he is facing as judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Portrait of Judge Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant from Brazil Photographie: Photo...
04 Apr COVID-19 Symposium: COVID-19 and International Criminal Law
...of Opinio Juris’ very pertinent symposium about the role of international law in responding to the crisis. One sub-question that may not come immediately to our minds is the relevance, if any, of international criminal law (ICL) and international criminal justice vis-à-vis pandemics like the COVID-19 one. Are notions of individual accountability and of criminal conduct relevant in this particular context? Is there a role for international criminal justice in the prevention of, and response to public health emergencies of this kind? Many will advance a negative answer to these...26 Feb Symposium: The Assumptions of Koh’s Transnational Legal Process as Counter-Strategy
[Craig Martin is a Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, and is Co-Director of the International and Comparative Law Center at Washburn Law.] This post will bring to a close the formal part of the virtual symposium on Harold Koh’s recent article The Trump Administration and International Law. As moderator, I would like to begin by thanking all those who contributed (including a couple of announced contributors who we unfortunately lost along the way to illness and crises). I think that each of the essays has raised...