Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

[Kateryna Busol is a Ukrainian lawyer and an Associate Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy] This post forms part of the Opinio Juris Symposium on Reproductive Violence in International Law, in which diverse authors reflect on how the International Criminal Court and other jurisdictions have responded to violations of reproductive health and reproductive autonomy. The symposium complements a one-day conference to be held on 11 June 2024,  in which legal practitioners, scholars, activists, and survivors will meet in The Hague and online to share knowledge and strategies for addressing...

Syria by November, Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a news conference with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. Under the agreement, Syria must submit a “comprehensive listing” of its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week. American and Russian officials also reached a consensus on the size of Syria’s stockpile, an essential prerequisite to any international plan to control and dismantle the weapons. “If fully implemented,” Mr. Kerry said, “this framework can provide greater protection and security to the world.” If President Bashar al-Assad of Syria fails to comply with...

...against the attacker up to and including invasion and occupation of another country? Similarly, do the Paris attacks(assuming Article V were invoked) allow President Obama to launch military strikes (and maybe invade and occupy) Syria? Surely, the President could have ordered U.S. forces to defend France without Congress. But I’m just not sure the Article V self-defense rationale gets Ilya all the way to a full-scale war on ISIS. 2) On a historical note, Ilya takes issue with my characterization of the legal rationale for Article V as allowing the...

Russian and China issue a dramatic double veto of the US-backed measure directed against Syria; nine Council members voted in favor, and India, Brazil, South Africa, and Lebanon abstained. Welcome to the New Post-Hegemonic World Order? It’s too soon to tell and our Data Set is insufficiently full. Still, it does recall David Rieff’s observation that a multipolar world is more competitive, not more cooperative. I don’t know where this leaves such things as R2P and in particular R2P undertaken without the blessing of the Security Council; I’d be interested...

...has territorial jurisdiction in Palestine. The Court faces a crucial decision: either it recognises that the ICC has judicial oversight over international crimes in Palestine (by virtue of the reasons put forth by my colleagues in this symposium), or it decides that Palestine remains in the blind spot of international justice, a legal black hole of where impunity is granted for the most serious crimes of international concern. As such, in accepting or rejecting territorial jurisdiction over Palestine, the Court will be forced to clarify its position within international law:...

Opinio Juris is pleased to announce an online symposium addressing social activism and international law. As our readers know, Kony 2012 was a YouTube sensation, spreading faster than any video in history. Although the details are airbrushed, the central theme of the video is about international law. The key idea of the video is that the indicted fugitive Joseph Kony should be brought to justice before the International Criminal Court to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Millions of viewers who never thought about the International Criminal...

[Jens David Ohlin is Associate Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School.] This post is part of our symposium on the latest issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. I agree with almost everything in Darryl Robinson’s plea for a cosmopolitan liberal approach to international criminal justice. Robinson’s article sketches out the development of ICL scholarship, noting the beginnings of the field, followed by the liberal critique of early ICL development, and then the counter-critique...

At Just Security today, my friend Harold Koh has mounted a typically masterful defense of the legality of unilateral humanitarian intervention (UHI) in Syria and other places. I wish all advocates of UHI were as thoughtful. Not surprisingly, though, I’m not convinced by Koh’s argument. Let me offer four (disconnected) thoughts on his claims below. A “per se illegal” rule would overlook many other pressing facts of great concern to international law that distinguish Syria from past cases: including the catastrophic humanitarian situation, the likelihood of future atrocities, the grievous...

...a legal duty to prevent further genocide by Daesh against the Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims in Iraq and Syria. The question is whether the efforts made thus far have satisfied the due diligence standard. US- and Russian-led coalitions have been pounding Daesh with airstrikes since mid-2014; however, Daesh’s genocidal campaign continues. In addition, according to reports, other States within the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, have continued aiding and assisting radical groups in Iraq and Syria with arms and munitions despite the genocide against the Yazidis,...

...‘Sources of International Law’ by exploring the debates about permanent sovereignty over natural resources and expropriation and this lends itself superbly to the TWAIL perspective (as does the text’s use of the Libya-Chad conflict as an introduction to the international legal system). Of course, critical teaching is contextual, and different methods will resonate with students inhabiting different lives. Thus, critical teaching in European countries for instance, will need different approaches and these have been developed in excellent initiatives in Kent and Warwick, for instance. The project of critical international law...

At Wednesday’s debate, Mitt Romney claimed that one of the reasons Iran supports the Syrian government is that Syria is Iran’s “route to the sea.” Hmm: Where’s Syria? Oh, yeah, it’s off to the left — past Iraq. And what’s that funny blue thing to the south of Iran? Could it be… water? Take it away, Emily Heil at the Washington Post: “Iran has direct access to waterways, thank you very much, with some 1,520 miles of coastline along the Arabian Sea. It doesn’t even share a border with Syria,...

[Beth Stephens is a Professor at Rutgers Law] As a late-arrival to this Insta-Symposium, I find that many of my thoughts about the Kiobel opinion have already been expressed. Corporate defendants won an important victory in Kiobel, at least for foreign corporations with no more than a “mere corporate presence” in the United States. I had not predicted that the justices would be unanimous in rejecting the ATS claims in this case. But in the most important aspect of the decision, I’m not surprised that we fell just one vote...