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.”...06 Apr Question on 2007 Strike Against Syria and Anticipatory Self-Defense
...that link doesn’t work] — there has been virtual silence from the international community about the 2007 strike on the Syrian nuclear facility at al-Kibar. Is that account accurate? I assume that because Israel has never acknowledged its purported involvement, it has also never offered an international law defense of the operation. (True?) Is it also the case that virtually no other nations have said anything one way or the other about its legality? If so, what, if anything, does the 2007 operation portend for the development of the law...31 May Syria War Crimes Accountability Act — Now Revised!
Last month, I blogged about the Syria War Crimes Accountability Act of 2017, a bipartisan Senate bill “[t]o require a report on, and to authorize technical assistance for, accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Syria.” I praised the bill, but pointed out that Section 7(a) was drafted in such a way that it permitted the US to provide technical assistance to entities investigating international crimes committed by pro-Assad forces and “violent extremist groups,” but did not permit the US to support entities investigating international crimes committed...
24 Apr Symposium: The Responsibility to Protect in Libya and Syria–Reflections
[Yasmine Nahlawi is an independent researcher specialising in R2P and its applicability to the Syrian and Libyan conflicts. She holds a PhD in Public International Law from Newcastle University, LLM in International Legal Studies from Newcastle University, and BSc in Political Science from Eastern Michigan University.] I would like to begin my response post by expressing my deepest gratitude to the distinguished reviewers of my book, Shannon Raj Singh, Anjali Manivannan, and Jessica Peake, for bringing in their diverse and insightful perspectives while reviewing ‘The Responsibility to Protect in Libya...
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...10 Jan Al Qaeda in the Headlines
...Al Qaeda’s authority over both ISIS and its rival Islamist group Al Nusra, neither group has been a model of compliance. In a videotaped aired by Al Jazeera two months ago, Zawahiri blamed the leaders of both groups for acting without the knowledge of the central al-Qaeda leadership, and ordered the re-organization of jihadist efforts in Syria and Iraq by abolishing ISIS and giving Al Nusra sole responsibility for Syria. ISIS, however, has shown no sign of curtailing its Syrian operations. Indeed, Foreign Policy separately reports that ISIS arrested, and...28 Jun That Syria War Power Debate, Continued
Cross-posted at Balkinization If, as I argued earlier this week, the 2001 AUMF passed by Congress cannot be read to authorize the growing set of U.S. military actions against Syrian and Iranian forces in Syria, does the President’s Article II power standing alone support these strikes? The best articulated argument I’ve seen that the President has the Article II power to attack Syrian aircraft (or Iranian drones or any non-ISIS force in Syria) in the interest of defending U.S.-allied Syrian government rebels goes something like this. The President surely has...01 Jan Exploring International Law with Opinio Juris in 2013: Highways, Back Roads, and Uncharted Territories…
find the posts related to them. Rather, this post is an idiosyncratic tour of some of the highways, back roads, and other territory that we traversed in 2013. As for a major highway, we had 33 posts that mentioned Kiobel this year (as well as many earlier posts, totaling 136 as of this writing) including an extensive symposium focused on the decision. A mid-stream round-up of the symposium is here. Roger also wrote about the subsequent interpretation of Kiobel by lower courts and Ken wrote on Kiobel and Bauman v...
24 Nov Symposium: Open-Source Investigations Labs, Educational Approaches and Societal Impact
...conference: Open-source investigations—including methods such as geo-location, satellite imagery analysis, and social media verification—have proven to be powerful tools for driving accountability in both human rights and environmental justice. In Syria, Bellingcat used geo-location, satellite imagery, and social media analysis to verify the use of chemical weapons in places like Khan Shaykhun and Douma. Similarly, Airwars exposed the extent of civilian casualties caused by the US-led coalition’s airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, leading the coalition to acknowledge over 1,400 civilian deaths and adopt greater transparency measures. During the...