Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
11 Apr War by Any Other Name? It’s Still War
[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...03 Sep Another Set of Syria Views on Huff Post
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....22 Dec The Washington Post Needs to Correct Its Syria Article
Karen De Young and Missy Ryan have a long article today in the Washington Post about internal USG debates over the rules of engagement in Syria. It’s a very interesting and generally excellent article, but it contain one major error: International law allows for civilian casualties, even intentional ones, providing an action is within the bounds of distinction and proportionality, a somewhat subjective judgment that the military importance of the target is worth it. No, international law does not allow intentional civilian casualties. Intentionally attacking civilians violates IHL’s principle of...30 Mar Comment Thread to Legal Adviser Harold Koh’s Statement on Syria
Benjamin G. Davis One thing missing from his speech which I appreciate is any indication of what the Syrian dissidents want. There is a great emphasis on what we are doing to reassure all of us about what we are doing, but one question left unanswered is what the Syrians want us to do. We can then see whether this is feasible under international law and given the state of the UN Security Council. It would have been nice. As to the 9000 dead - it is very ironic to...05 Nov The OTP Concludes Israel Is Still Occupying Gaza
...view that “by exercise of authority one should mean not only the display of sovereign or other powers (lawmaking, law enforcement, administrative powers, etc.) but also any exercise of power, however limited in time (for instance, the use of belligerent force in an armed conflict). And btw, Uganda-Gaza (360 km2) and Syria(Golan) are misleading comparisons. Matthew Mainen The ICJ case was in 2004. Israel Withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Israel most certainly does not manage civilian life in Gaza. It has zero control over day-to-day life in Gaza inasmuch as...10 Sep Rapid Response Seminar: Humanitarian Intervention, International Law and Syria
Normally, we post our conference announcements weekly, but we just got word of one tomorrow that’s worth flagging. The British Institute of International and Comparative law (BIICL) will be holding a Rapid Response Seminar tomorrow, September 11, from 4-6 pm to discuss ‘Humanitarian Intervention, International Law and Syria’. As the title suggests, the conversation will discuss whether humanitarian intervention falls within the corpus of international law and, if so, whether it can be applied to the current Syrian situation. Robert McCorquodale (BIICL) will chair the panel, with scheduled speakers including...16 Feb Weekly News Wrap: Tuesday, February 16, 2016
...Documenting war and harsh reality of life, some Syrian media outlets are now based in Turkey informing those back home. For the past week, Turkish military forces have been shelling targets in northern Syria held by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union Party, a group designated by Turkey as a terrorist organisation, leading to speculation about “ethnic cleansing.” Asia U.S. President Barack Obama and allies from Southeast Asia will turn their attention to China on Tuesday on the second day of a...23 Aug Syria, Chemical Weapons, and the Incoherence of the VCLT
My friend Dapo Akande has a superb post at EJIL: Talk! discussing whether the ICC could prosecute the use of chemical weapons by the government in Syria. I agree almost entirely with Dapo’s analysis, but I do want to offer a couple of thoughts about his discussion of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: The argument that chemical weapons are not covered by Art. 8 is thus based on the removal of the explicit prohibition and the fact that it was thought that it would be the annex...