In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

04 Feb

...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:...
04.02.20 | |

02 Oct

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...
02.10.13 | |

06 Apr

...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,...
06.04.16 | |

31 Aug

...‘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...
31.08.20 | |

24 Feb

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,...
24.02.12 | |

18 Apr

[Dr. Alex Mills is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Laws at University College London.] Although the Kiobel Court finds unanimously for the respondents, it is nevertheless predictably split (between the opinion of the Court, written by Chief Justice Roberts, and the concurrence led by Justice Breyer) when it comes to the reasons underlying that decision. One way of characterising this split is as a competition between two presumptions (as also noted previously by Anthony Colangelo and John H Knox in this ‘Insta-Symposium’). The first, the apparent foundation of the...
18.04.13 | |

23 Apr

[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...
23.04.13 | |

27 Sep

[Elvina Pothelet is a Visiting Researcher at the Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Geneva.] A few days ago, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Shane Reeves and Lieutenant Colonel Ward Narramore published a harsh criticism of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Syria for its “emphatic, and faulty, conclusion that the U.S. violated the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)” in an airstrike that hit a religious complex in the village of Al-Jinah. The two authors challenge both the factual and the legal findings of the...
27.09.17 | |

11 Apr

[Gabor Rona is a Visiting Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Armed Conflict Project at Cardozo Law School. Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights, Cardozo School of Law.] “It’s not war. We haven’t gone to war against Syria.” These are the quoted words of former legal advisor of the U.S. Department of State Harold Koh in a recent New Yorker article addressing the legality of the April 6 U.S. missile strike...
11.04.17 | |

14 Jun

...and militias as local counter-insurgents. The US provided support to a range Syrian nonstate armed groups, from select groups of the Free Syrian Army, to prolonged support to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria. In addition to such large-scale support, US Special Forces and intelligence agents have regularly turned to militias, clan forces, tribal groups, or nonstate (or questionably quasi-state) armed groups as auxiliary forces for global counter-terrorism missions. This has been prominent in Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and Libya, but may also have taken place in any...
14.06.21 | |

03 Sep

For those still following along, an interesting array of views on the Syria situation in a conversation this afternoon on HuffPost Live, including Michael Scharf, Jules Lobel, Eric Posner, and yours truly. Would that the link went back a bit farther, you could listen in on a lively Miley Cyrus debate as well....
03.09.13 | |

28 Aug

I’ve been distracted the last few days by all this Syria stuff (and a nasty case of poison ivy), so I neglected to keep up with the latest on that Philippines-China UNCLOS arbitration now seated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Luckily, Luke Petersen of Investment Arbitration Reporter is on the case and has this great post analyzing the information released so far about the arbitration. Note that the Philippines has until March 2014 to file their memorial. This seems ridiculously long given that they’ve been preparing...
28.08.13 | |