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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

17 Sep

...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...
17.09.14 | |

17 Sep

...the independence decision is a decision which the people of Scotland have a democratic right to make, and that it is a decision to be made by them alone. It also politically binds the Governments to respect the result of the referendum. In short, it represents an acceptance, in this instance, by the United Kingdom of the right of the Scottish people to secessionary self-determination. Irrespective of the outcome of the vote, the Scotland precedent puts pressure on other governments to grant similar referendums to secessionist movements in their own...
17.09.14 | |

06 Mar

We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris over the next few days about the crisis in Ukraine, with particular emphasis on Russian intervention in Crimea. As we have done in the past with other symposiums, we also welcome young academics to submit guests posts for possible publication. We can’t guarantee we will publish every post submitted, but we would love to broaden the discussion to include new voices. So if you want to write a guest post for Opinio Juris about Ukraine of approximately 500...
06.03.14 | |

17 Sep

[Christopher K. Connolly is an Assistant United States Attorney, Southern District of New York. This post is written solely in the author’s personal capacity. The views expressed in this post are the author’s alone and cannot be attributed in any way to his employer or any branch of the U.S. Government.] On September 7th, faced with new polls showing a surge in support for Scottish independence, the British government made a pledge to the people of Scotland: vote “No” in this Thursday’s referendum, thereby remaining within the United...
17.09.14 | |

06 Mar

...(despite the fact that some textwriters use the wrong test for imputation re: self-defense). Aurel Sari Jordan, thanks for the comments. I don't think that the limitation 'in contravention of the Charter' adds much for our purposes. The point of that qualification is simply to recognize that there could be instances where the first use of armed force does not qualify as an act of aggression because it is in accordance with the Charter, as in the case of force used or authorized by the Security Council. Since aggression is...
06.03.14 | |

23 Apr

[William S. Dodge is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. From August 2011 to July 2012, he served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked on the amicus briefs filed by the United States in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the State Department or of the United States.] My...
23.04.13 | |

02 Jun

[We are pleased to share comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Samantar v. Yousuf from Professor Curtis Bradley , who has written a great deal on the issue considered by the Court yesterday. We hope to share comments from other informed observers on the decision over the next couple of days ]. As I bask in the glow of not having a single Justice in Samantar accept the theory of the FSIA that Jack Goldsmith and I had proposed, the following thoughts occur to...
02.06.10 | |

17 Mar

...of Governors that makes the decision on membership is not the collection of the individual votes of IMF’s member states. The member states’ votes are not equal; for instance, the United States’ voting share is approximately 17% while Ukraine’s is approximately 0.6 %. On the other hand, the recent admission of South Sudan as the 193rd member state of the United Nations has left little doubts as to its statehood status. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the country to the “community of nations.” Collective non-recognition impedes a secessionist entity’s...
17.03.14 | |

09 Mar

...against premature recognition and foreign-installed regimes) — the internationally authoritative criterion for an apparatus’s standing as the State’s government (Roth, at 30). First, it should be noted that the “effective control” doctrine conforms to the Montevideo criteria, according to which international personality is found in a territorially coherent political community under the long-term effective control of an independent government (Roth, at 7). Moreover, granting the effective government the legitimacy to act in the international arena stems from the effective government’s capability to fulfill its international obligations (UN Doc. S/1466). Accordingly,...
09.03.14 | |

02 Jun

...my view, it is entirely appropriate that the Court read the FSIA as it was written, and left it to the district court to address Samantar’s claim of common law immunity in the first instance. In arguing for immunity, Samantar seemed to take for granted that, if the FSIA applied to individuals, he would enjoy immunity for torture and extrajudicial killing. He argued that, both under the common law and the FSIA, “individual immunity … was coextensive with the law of state immunity and always immunized a foreign official for...
02.06.10 | |

10 Mar

[Gregory H. Fox is the director of the Program for International Legal Studies and Professor of Law at Wayne State University.] In the early days of the Ukrainian crisis, commentators discussed a number of possible justifications for Russian intervention in the Crimea. On Saturday, March 3, however, the Russian ambassador the UN announced the existence of a letter from Viktor Yanukovych to the President of Russia, dated March 1, requesting Russian intervention. In the letter Yanokovych purportedly described conditions of chaos in Ukraine and called on “President Vladimir...
10.03.14 | |

09 Mar

[Remy Jorritsma (LL.M.) is a lecturer and teacher at the Department of International and European Law of Maastricht University.] This contribution intends to demonstrate that Ukraine and Russia are involved in an international armed conflict, triggering the application of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In particular, this post explores two relevant issues: the question of valid consent, and the legal qualification of the recent military hostilities. In the Security Council meeting of 1 March 2014 the representative of Russia asserted that [the Prime Minister of Crimea] went to the...
09.03.14 | |