Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
23 Feb Weekly News Wrap: Monday, February 23, 2015
...Levant (ISIL) group in Syria have killed more than 1,600 people since they began five months ago, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The UN special envoy to Syria is travelling to Damascus to try to reduce the fighting which has intensified in Aleppo, where rebels claim to have killed 300 government soldiers in the past week. A Moroccan court sentenced a former Spanish soldier to eight years in jail on Friday on charges of leading an Islamist network in the kingdom that was plotting terror attacks, the...02 Feb Weekly News Wrap: Tuesday, February 2, 2016
...months. Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, peace negotiators in Colombia or Greek islanders helping Syrian refugees were among tips for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize at the deadline for nominations on Monday. Regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran should reconcile and help resolve tensions in the Middle East, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday. The United Nations has said that there should be no amnesty for people suspected of committing war crimes as talks aimed at ending Syria’s war continued to struggle in Geneva. The United...03 Jul Weekday News Wrap: July 3, 2012
Syria’s President Assad has expressed regret at the downing of the Turkish jet last month and has vowed to apologize should it be established that the jet was shot down in international airspace. Human Rights Watch has released a report on arbitrary arrests, detention and torture in Syria since the beginning of the civil unrest in March 2011. A Reuters article discusses how the failing of diplomacy in Syria is pushing some states to get more actively involved in the dispute. UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay has plead with...
09 Mar Shamima Begum and the Right to Enter One’s Own Country
ties and a person’s duration of residence in a country) that have led the HRC to apply Art. 12(4) to individuals in subsequent decisions (see Nystorm v Australia and Warsame v Canada). Other interpretations of Art. 12(4) also point to the importance of a country facilitating the re-entry of its citizens who have travelled abroad – specific concerns have been raised, for instance, in the context of the Syrian Government’s failure to issue passports to some Syrian citizens abroad, effectively barring them from re-entering Syria (see Concluding Observations of the...06 May Guest Post: Stephen W. Preston on ‘The Legal Framework for the United States’ Use of Military Force since 9/11’ (ASIL Annual Meeting 2015)–Old Wine in New Bottles
...partners. Preston also referred to a public hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May 2014, during which he had listed the groups and individuals against which the US were taking military action (in the sense of capture or lethal operations) under the 2001 AUMF, namely: al-Qa’ida, the Taliban and certain other terrorist or insurgent groups in Afghanistan; al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Yemen; individuals who are part of al-Qa’ida in Somalia and Libya; (since 2014) the Nusrah Front and the Khorasan Group in Syria; and “the group...18 Jan Weekly News Wrap: Monday, January 18, 2016
...efforts to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria during a surprise visit to Iraq on Saturday. Turnbull also announced on Monday a small increase in the Australian troop commitment to the NATO-led force supporting the Afghan central government during a surprise visit to Kabul. UN/World As attacks on civilians continue in North Kivu, DRC, many say the UN mission there is doing nothing to help or protect them. Unverified reports say 15 to 20 people died of starvation in the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor last year, the...15 Aug Weekday News Wrap: Wednesday, August 15, 2012
In Syria, fresh clashes have broken out in Damascus and Aleppo, even though the defected Prime Minister Hijab has said the regime is close to collapse. Human Rights Watch reports that fighter planes have struck a hospital in Aleppo, while Reuters provides an exclusive about Libyan fighters joining the rebel forces. US Defense Secretary Panetta has accused Iran of supporting pro-Assad militias in Syria. Meanwhile, China has argued Western states’ attempts to engineer a regime change in Syria undermine solidarity on the UN Security Council. The Guardian reports that Ecuador...
09 Oct Trump vs. International Law: The Trump Administration and International Criminal Justice
...Jack Smith, is funded by the United State as an in-kind donation to an otherwise European Union-led institution. It has also expressed support for new hybrid institutions dedicated to South Sudan and the Central African Republic—a situation also before the Court. In addition, the United States has been instrumental in conceptualizing and launching the third generation of international justice mechanisms that include two new documentation efforts for Syria and Iraq: the Syria International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) via the General Assembly and the Iraq Investigative Team via the Security...
14 Jul Intervention in Civil Wars Symposium: Beyond Humanitarian Intervention–Human Rights and Jus Ad Bellum
...intervention on behalf of a State. Redaelli identifies a 3-pronged structure for answering this question, including legitimacy of origin (the recognition of democratically elected governments that do not exercise effective control over territory and population) and legitimacy of exercise (illegitimacy of governments which commit gross and systematic violations of IHRL and international humanitarian law (IHL) against their own populations, and the legitimacy of rebel groups fighting against such governments, e.g. in Libya and Syria). However, as Redaelli acknowledges, human rights and legitimacy are not the be-all and end-all in determining...27 Aug Will the U.S. Move to Citizenship-Strip ISIS Fighters?
It’s only a matter of time before we start seeing proposals to take away the citizenship of Americans fighting for ISIS/ISIL forces in Syria and Iraq. They have drawn renewed attention in the wake of James Foley’s beheading (apparently by a British citizen) and the death, reported at length today in the NYT, of American Douglas McCain in Syria. Several hundred individuals with Western citizenships are thought to be fighting with the extreme Sunni group. A proposal to expatriate terrorists associated with entities hostile to the United States went nowhere...