Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

[Claire Kelly is a Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School.] This post is part of the Virginia Journal of International Law Symposium, Volume 52, Issues 1 and 2. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Thank you very much to Opinio Juris for this opportunity to comment on this set of Articles recently published in the Virginia Journal of International Law. To address rationalism’s failings, Professor Cho prescribes a constructivist or sociological lens in his Article, “Beyond Rationality: A Sociological Construction of the...

[ Kelisiana Thynne is a Legal Adviser in the Advisory Services on IHL, Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) . This is a post in our joint blog symposium exploring the new ICRC Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII Commentary) ]. Respecting the Conventions in case of an armed conflict regularly presupposes that preparations have been made in advance (ICRC 2020 Commentary to GCIII, (all paragraph references in the blog are to this Commentary), para 178) [O]bligations in the Conventions may best be implemented during...

...and affected me personally.  The University of Southampton  In the summer of 2014, I recall seeing notice for a conference at the University of Southampton School of Law scheduled for April 2015. The conference was the brainchild of Oren Ben-Dor, an Israeli law professor based at Southampton University and was co-organised with George Bisharat, a Palestinian-American law professor based at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. (Coincidentally, George is also a contributor to this symposium). The call for papers was considered controversial at the time because it...

am grateful to have the opportunity to question the author about specific legal and operational challenges that have been insufficiently explored in the book. The Different Structures of Non-State Armed Groups International law has always conceived NSAGs as “unities”. IHL, for instance, applies to a NSAG as a party to an armed conflict. The specific rules will vary in some respects depending on different elements. The 1977 Additional Protocol II (AP II) to the Geneva Conventions, for instance, has a more restricted scope of application than the one of Common...

[Craig Martin is Associate Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, and author of another of the chapters in Targeted Killings] This post is part of the Targeted Killings Book Symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Jens Ohlin’s chapter in Targeted Killings, “Targeting Co-Belligerents,” provides an important analysis of one of the key questions in the targeted killing debate, and makes a persuasive argument in favor of one possible response to it. In doing so, however, I wonder if it...

[Mark A. Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law and Director of the Transnational Law Institute at Washington and Lee University School of Law.] 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. Darryl Robinson is among the most exciting thinkers currently engaged with international criminal law (ICL). In his latest piece, the subject of today’s discussion, he surveys the field. While much of academic...

[Jennifer Keene-McCann is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Asia Justice Coalition and is based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Aakash Chandran is a Fellow at the Asia Justice Coalition and is based in New Delhi, India.] This third Opinio Juris symposium relating to crimes against the Rohingya marks another difficult anniversary. Its theme, ‘Myanmar and International Indifference: Rethinking Accountability’, evokes a call to keep approaches to international justice fresh, creative, and most importantly relevant to the needs of survivors. This includes continually searching and testing new avenues for justice. Over the...

alone from the U.S. could not have done this. Now UN member States are required to assist in the investigation. If Syria persists in stonewalling, then UN member States may soon be required to have sanctions against Syria. But still, isn’t this less direct than the U.S. going in and trying a little regime change? Well, yes, but the point is that what sometimes seems to be the most direct method (hey guys, let’s topple a government!) can be the least effective. Rather, here we see the role of consensus...

Martin Lederman Thanks very much for that very thoughtful response, Deborah. I agree with almost all of it. As to the value of requiring a congressional vote, I tend to think the principal reason for that constitutional requirement is to prevent a President from making a horrible decision unilaterally, when unable to convince one or both houses, or the people, of its wisdom. Syria 2013 is a fine example of where the constitutional condition made a world of difference; regardless of whether one thinks the U.S. should have attacked Syria,...

the real threat. And the US has done absolutely nothing to protect Syrians from conventional weapons — it has simply funnelled even more into the country to support various rebel groups (including some that are allied with al-Qaeda) in their struggle against Assad. The US cares about protecting its own interests in Syria, such as preventing chemical weapons from being used against Americans. (The real message of the completely ineffectual attack.) It does not care about the lives of ordinary Syrians, as the ever mounting death-toll indicates. But let’s put...

Matters in Syria are going from bad to worse. I am sure this won’t do any harm, but it is not going to help either. It will simply give the illusion that the international community is dong something about Syria. Syrian officials suspected of committing or ordering crimes against humanity should face prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC), the United Nations human rights office said on Friday. “We believe, and we’ve said it and we’ll keep repeating it, that the case of Syria belongs in the International Criminal Court....

...the decolonization context. Second, the right to self-determination in most instances authorizes a people to exercise its right to internal self-determination, which is typically reflected in a right to form a regional government and/or have other cultural, linguistic, and religious rights respected by the mother state. The right to self-determination, outside of the decolonization context, may lead to the secessionist type of external self-determination only in extreme instances where the mother state chooses to completely disrespect the people’s right to internal self-determination. According to the Canadian Supreme Court in the...