Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

...over Iraq. Syria is also not a party to the Rome Statute, and Russia and China have blocked Security Council referrals that would have granted the ICC jurisdiction over Syria. This is a structural failure of the international system – the countries most responsible for atrocities in the region have shielded themselves and their allies from ICC reach. The remaining avenues are universal jurisdiction prosecutions in third-party states – Germany has been the most active, with several convictions of ISIL members under its Code of Crimes against International Law. Sweden,...

[Alonso Illueca is a lawyer and adjunct Professor of International Law at Universidad del Istmo] On July 12, 2019, Panama announced its decision to withdraw its flag from any vessel violating “sanctions and international legislation”. This decision resulted in the removal of 59 ships (mostly tankers) from Panama’s shipping fleet due to their link with the Islamic Republic of Iran (“Iran”) and the Syrian Arab Republic (“Syria”). While Panama has the right to withdraw its flag from any vessel, its practice as the State with the world’s largest shipping fleet...

in Iraq and Syria (including the genocide of the Yezidi people) and the armed interventions by the US, Russian and Turkish military, the nature of the conflict I would argue, has internationalized. The current tension with some Turkish attacks in the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria should surely be argued to be internationalised with the active participation of the US and Russian forces and various Syrian militant groups including ISIS. However, as Mačák has pointed out various parts of this conflict may be a NIAC and others an IAC...

...principles of the UN Charter and escape international accountability and sanctions through using the veto, very little can be done for peace and security. Some of the P-5 not only disintegrated from “guardians of peace” to the worst aggressors, but also protected friendly countries from accountability for genocidal policies (Myanmar), war crimes (Yemen, Gaza) and crimes against humanity (Sudan, Syria). With this in mind, I would go further than Bakircioglu and explicitly demand elimination of the veto, ideally through Art. 109 Review Conference of the UN Charter. Nothing less would...

fighters to date merely acknowledge the individual suffering of single victims in specific instances. The JCE doctrine can be a means of acknowledging the suffering of larger victim groups. Incorporating JCE into an international tribunal or domestic legislation, would therefore also serve the interests of transitional justice for Syrians. Applying the doctrine of JCE to the genocide against the Yazidis would provide a new avenue and encouragement for charging ISIS members with counts of genocide and eventually hold all responsible individuals accountable. Most importantly, the charging of individual members of...

...at from this perspective, only 13 countries outside of Europe and North America issued statements: Brazil, Chile, China, Georgia, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, Syria, Turkey, and UAE. Of these, Brazil, China, Turkey, and Iran issued Neutral statements. One thing that is sure to complicate this debate about the Global South’s position even further is that it took a long time for Russia’s traditional allies to speak out; and when they did, the reaction was underwhelming. Belarus, Iran, and Syria, in fact, waited 48 hours and only issued...

...doctrine through the inaction in Syria. The paralysis of the Security Council in Syria highlights the difficulty in arguing the R2P doctrine does represent any new set of legal norms or obligations. If the R2P doctrine is an emerging, or new norm of customary international law, the inaction in Syria can only be described as a failure of the doctrine’s capabilities. However, if the R2P doctrine is described as a marketing campaign that only re-packages already existing international legal obligations, the failure to act in Syria cannot be blamed on...

...(Principles and Guidelines). The Republic of Congo has launched an investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse involving its troops serving as UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR). Middle East and Northern Africa The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is ready to send ground troops to Syria as part of an international coalition to fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, a top official has said. Foreign army soldiers who enter Syria without government consent would “return home in wooden coffins“, Syria’s Foreign Minister...

Violence erupted in Beirut after the funeral of the slain intelligence chief, raising fears that Lebanon will be unable to escape the tensions in Syria. Foreign Policy has more here. In Syria itself, violence continues, and Special Envoy Brahimi has once again called for a ceasefire over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha starting this Thursday. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has told the special envoy to Syria that the weapons flow to rebel forces must stop. Turkey has called for international intervention in Syria. Jordanian officials have claimed that they...

...to Bangladeshi nationality. The Background Bangladesh is entirely foreign to Shamima who is London-born. Yet by the age of 20 she has lost her 3 children and her British nationality. She travelled to Syria in 2015 at the age of just 15, beguiled to be an ISIL bride. After the collapse of the ISIL State she was detained in the Al-Hawl camp in north-east Syria under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Front. Her two elder children had died sometime earlier and her third, a son born in the...

...which Russia and China vetoed resolution after resolution that would have aided the Syrian people.  Both Russia and China argued that each resolution they vetoed was biased against the Syrian regime and would open the door to military intervention and regime change.  However, through detailed analysis Nahlawi shows that this was false.  The UNSC resolutions did not authorize the use of force, and instead outlined non-military measures, or referrals to the ICC.  She rightly accuses Russia and China of being bad actors in these vetoes, abusing their power in bad...

[Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. He returned to Yale in January 2013 after serving for nearly four years as the 22nd Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State.] I have been educated by the thoughtful symposium on my new book, The Trump Administration and International Law (Oxford University Press 2018). I am grateful to the committed colleagues who contributed to this Symposium for enlightening me, and deepening my understanding. I especially thank my kind friend Kevin Jon Heller for graciously hosting...