Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

...crime, a private citizen or certain nongovernmental organizations to be a party in the criminal process together with, or instead of, public prosecutors. To see these causal pathways in action, consider the three recent cases in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Anwar Raslan — a former security official in Syrian President Bashir al-Assad’s regime — fled Syria shortly after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War and ultimately settled in Germany in 2014. During this same period, Syrian migrants in Germany organized to promote prosecutions. They created their own nongovernmental...

...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...

...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...

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...

...nuclear inspectors access to a military base that they have been seeking to visit since 2005, Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehgan has said. More than 191,000 people have died in Syria, United Nation human rights chief Navi Pillay has said, lashing out at “international paralysis” on the nearly three-and-a-half year conflict. In her last address to the Security Council, the UN human rights chief sharply criticised the body for its ineffectiveness on Syria and other intractable conflicts, saying its members have often put national interests ahead of stopping mass atrocities....

ad bellum issue does not arise, but there still might or might not be violations of the jus in bello. Syria certainly poses a jus ad bellum issue, but there the US justification might not be preemptive self-defense, but self-defense against an armed attack that was already committed by a non-state actor operating from Syrian territory, which Syria failed to prevent. In any case it is hard to say more about these events without knowing much, much more about the actual facts. Guneysu In addition to what Milan has written,...

...foreign minister’s visit is expected to defuse tensions between Iraq and Syria after Baghdad’s allegations that Damascus was harboring insurgents responsible for the recent truck bombings in Baghdad. “Iraq’s stance is to go on demanding the UN to form an international criminal court to prosecute the perpetrators of these brutal crimes against innocent Iraqis and targeted the security and stability of Iraq,” a statement from Maliki’s office quoted him as saying. Maliki reiterated Iraq’s firm stance of demanding Syria to handover senior members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party whom Baghdad...

As Ken notes below, the draft UN Security Council Resolution regarding the disposition of Syria’s chemical weapons is now available. While it can’t be construed as authorizing the use of force against Syria to ensure compliance without further Security Council action – entirely consistent with the Council’s past practice in Iraq, Kosovo, and elsewhere with slowly escalating Security Council threats and then reality of sanctions it decides to impose – marks an obvious and large step forward in what had, until a few weeks ago, been a seemingly intractable disaster....

...British government is strongly considering providing weapons to rebels in Syria — and that the CIA has already facilitated weapons shipments to the rebels from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. There is no question that that much of the fighting being waged by rebel groups in Syria is perfectly lawful under international humanitarian law. But there is also no question — as the Commission of Inquiry on Syria and Human Rights Watch have richly documented — that rebel groups have also committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity. Unless...

...for theology. Indeed, ‘his arguments against philosophy are themselves philosophical’ (Leaman 2002: 27). Islamic philosophy proper begins under the auspices of the ‘Abbāsid dynasty in the third/ninth century. Its origins are principally Greek, although it was transmitted largely by Christian scholars translating philosophical and other works into Arabic (with some of these from Syriac translations of Greek manuscripts). Of lesser but not insignificant impact was the rendering of Indian and Persian literature likewise into Arabic. Many Muslims did not welcome works of Peripatetic (Aristotelian and Pseudo-Aristotelian) and Neoplatonic provenance into...

...sovereignty issues will be triggered. In Syria, the situation is more complicated. U.S. forces will be acting with the consent of the opposition there, though whether Assad will give his consent to operations in Syria seems unlikely. But perhaps the U.S. will rely exclusively on proxy forces in Syria. He was vague on this. There was no discussion of Security Council authorization, though he did discuss the need for a coalition to fight ISIS. My view is that ISIS represents a far greater threat than al-Qaeda ever posed. ISIS currently...

...translation). The letter acknowledges that there are no longer clear boundaries between Iraq and Syria, and that IS presence in Syria poses a direct threat to Iraq. The letter expresses understanding for the American efforts against IS in Syria, while observing that the US has invoked the right of collective self-defence under Article 51 UN Charter. On the other hand, it is noted that: ‘strict conditions apply for the exercise of this right, especially when an (imminent) armed attack emanates from an armed group such as IS. What is determining...