Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
07 Apr Initial Takes on Syria: International-Domestic Synergies
There are lots of initial takes on the legality of the Syria strike. (I see, just now, a great compendium of short takes at Just Security.) Some ask for a legal justification, and other experts are holding (for a bit) until one is proffered. As the posts below by Deborah Pearlstein and Julian Ku helpfully indicate, one thing to watch for is assumed or disputed equivalencies between the positions of the United States as it contemplated these questions in 2013 and as it now confronts them. Other unfolding differences, naturally,...24 May How Does a Hybrid Tribunal for Iraq and Afghanistan Sound?
said. The plan currently under consideration is for the U.N. General Assembly to adopt a resolution inviting one of Syria’s neighbors, probably Jordan or Turkey, to work with the U.N. Secretary General to establish a so-called hybrid court, comprised of local, international, and Syrian prosecutors and judges. The court would be funded by voluntary contributions from governments that support the effort. Lynch notes that a hybrid tribunal for Syria would be a first for the UNGA, because — unlike the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers in...23 May Implications of Security Council Veto on ICC Referral of Syrian Situation
in the blogs, for example by Dov Jacobs here and Kevin here. Nonetheless, for a Council that is deeply engaged with Syria, yesterday’s Security Council session marked another defeat for the people of Syria. Despite widespread member state support starting in 2013 for a referral, see this letter signed by 57 states to the Security Council, and reports that 60 states supported the referral yesterday, the meeting marked the fourth time Russia and China vetoed resolutions involving Syria, and the first time the veto has been used on a proposed...27 Sep The Law Applied by the UN Syria Commission to the Al-Jinah Strike is Correct – And Reflects US Doctrine: A Reply to LTC Reeves and Narramore
[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...14 Jun What do Appropriate Due Diligence Measures for Nonstate and Substate Partners Look Like? Part I: Outlining Partnership Patterns and the Legal Debate
...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...
22 Nov Poor Yorick: Talmon on Trump and International Law
by the Security Council, the ICJ, and nearly every state in the world. (And indeed, in the past couple of days alone the US position has been condemned by the UN, the EU, Germany, and even BoJo’s United Kingdom.) The second example is the Trump administration’s decision to use combat troops to guard oilfields in eastern Syria. The idea that the US would seize oil belonging to Syria has rightfully been condemned as the war crime of pillage, with Gen. Barry McCaffrey almost breaking the internet by tweeting, “WHAT ARE...
13 Oct Et tu, Brute? – Trump’s Betrayal of the Kurds and Failure to Prevent their Impending Genocide
operation into Northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial “Caliphate,” will no longer be in the immediate area.’ The long-planned operation to which the White House statement referred was Erdogan’s plans to create a 20-mile buffer, or ‘safe zone’, within the Kurdish-controlled area of Syria in which the Turkish military plans to resettle the nearly 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently sheltered in southeastern Turkey. According to Erdogan, the Turkish military plans to...14 Nov MJIL Symposium: A Response to Spencer Zifcak by Ramesh Thakur
back in New York, there was an unbridgeable gap between effective civilian protection, which Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (‘BRICS’) supported, and regime change, which they strongly opposed. One important result of the gaps was a split in the international response to the worsening crisis in Syria. Both China and Russia, still smarting from the over-interpretation of Resolution 1973, have been defiantly opposed to any resolution that could set in train a sequence of events leading to a 1973-type authorisation for outside military operations in Syria. Fourthly, the...28 Aug Non-Syria News: Update on that Philippines-China Arbitration
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...17 Sep IL/IR Symposium: Flexibility in International Agreements
[Larry Helfer is the Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law] I am delighted to participate in this Opinio Juris book symposium on Jeff Dunoff and Mark Pollack’s excellent edited volume. My chapter on “Flexibility in International Agreements” was improved by their many helpful comments and suggestions. This brief post summarizes a few of the chapter’s major themes. Citations to all references can be found in the online and print versions of the chapter. Government officials, international lawyers, and diplomats have...