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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

21 Dec

...on the global climate. The UN Security Council has unanimously agreed on the text of a draft resolution for peace talks in January and a ceasefire aimed at ending the war in Syria. The United Nations Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution to cut off all sources of funding for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIL) and other groups it classifies as terrorist organisations. Millions of Swiss francs related to world football’s governing body FIFA have been frozen by the Swiss Justice Ministry, a spokesman has confirmed....
21.12.15 | |

25 Oct

...Chinese and Russian backlash post-Libya be seen as the system's response to the unlawfulness of the actual Libya intervention and the manner in which the mandate was so blatantly exceeded? Okay, there are a number of other political factors guiding Chinese/Russian voting on Syria, but a pretty key issue has been the disillusionment post-Libya. NATO exceeded the limits of the lawful authority it was granted, so therefore any legal authority viz a viz Syria is now being withheld. Rhodri C. Williams @Mihai - I had a sense of that but...
25.10.11 | |

22 May

...presence in Syria was likely the function of trafficking. These rulings are troubling, particularly insofar as they render Muthana and Begum effectively stateless, in contravention of myriad principles of international law and, specifically, Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The problem of statelessness is elemental—without citizenship, the individual’s access to the most basic rights diminishes drastically. These rulings therefore beg the question of how far judiciaries should go when considering whether to rubber-stamp the inherently political executive branch decision to effectively strip individuals of citizenship. Muthana’s Case: Neither...
22.05.23 | |

02 Jul

The ICC turned 10 yesterday. Amnesty International’s Secretary General passes judgement here. Militants in Timbuktu, Mali, are destroying Sufi shrines, which they consider idolatrous. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has expressed his concern and ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has warned that the actions can be considered a war crime. Tensions continue to build along the Syria-Turkey border. The UN-backed Group on Syria reached an agreement over the weekend about principles for the transition government. However, Syria’s opposition has expressed disappointment over the outcome of the Geneva talks, as Russia resisted...
02.07.12 | |

28 May

Foreign Policy in Focus reports on Europe’s immigration dilemma after the Arab Spring. IMF Chief Christine Lagarde has attracted the ire of the Greeks over her comments in a Guardian interview last week that it is payback time. The UN Security Council has condemned Syria over the massacre of at least 108 people in the city of Houla. The Syrian government denies involvement and The Telegraph reports how Syria accuses the UN and Western envoys of a “tsunami of lies” over the massacre. The UK Foreign Secretary is in Moscow...
28.05.12 | |

15 Jun

This week on Opinio Juris, there was a lot of news to cover with NSA leak and the US administration’s decision to arm Syrian rebels. On the first, Julian thought Hong Kong was a dumb choice of refuge for the NSA leaker. Chris dug deeper into domestic data-mining with earlier stories about the NSA’s activities. Peter addressed the position of expat Americans in PRISM. Further on cyber-issues, Duncan highlighted Japan’s new Cybersecurity Strategy. On the second bit of news, Julian argued why the “red line” crossed by Syria is meaningless...
15.06.13 | |

18 Jun

R2P depends on having some conception of the “rights” of people to protection from other states. It is not about leaving the Syrians alone, but rather protecting them from harm. Yet what precisely this right to assistance includes in Syria or elsewhere, no one is able to say. Even accepting a basic moral responsibility, there remain difficult questions about what action best respects rights and what will serve to promote human rights and security overall. The responsibility will always be contingent on political, military, and other calculations and will be...
18.06.13 | |

21 Aug

...through civil war, PLO and Syrian occupation, terrorist attacks, de facto Hezbollah takeover and Israeli invasions – is going to fail once again to maintain the peace. (Apropos maintaining the peace, former peace negotiator Dennis Ross has an inadvertently comical piece in the Washington Post in which he urges engaging Syria in order to create an “enduring cease-fire” in south Lebanon like the enduring cease-fire Ross negotiated in 1993, and then again in 1996 when the enduring 1993 cease-fire broke down. With apologies to Mark Twain, it seems that bringing...
21.08.06 | |

03 Apr

...in 2012 they condemned the Israeli action. This is from the NAM Final Document issued at its 16th Annual Summit: The Heads of State or Government underscored the Movement’s principled position concerning non-use or threat of use of force against the territorial integrity of any State. In this regard, they condemned the Israeli attack against a Syrian facility on September 6, 2007, which constitutes a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and welcomed Syria’s cooperation with the IAEA in this regard. NAM Final Document 2012/Doc.1/Rev.2, para 176 available at: https://www.iranwatch.org/sites/default/files/nam-iransummitfinaldocument-083112.pdf...
03.04.18 | |

25 Sep

which Deeks (1) correctly points out that the US and UK both support “unwilling or unable,” (2) claims that “France appears to be prepared to invoke the ‘unwilling or unable’ concept in the Syria context,” and (3) states that Australia is “apparently relying on a collective self-defense of Iraq/unwilling and unable theory.” So at most there is a “broad consensus” of four states in support of “unwilling or unable.” And perhaps there are only two. That’s quite a consensus. This isn’t even instant custom. This is custom by scholarly fiat....
25.09.15 | |

08 Apr

...right is the right to self-preservation, a right that is protected not only by the concept of self-determination but also the right to be free from genocide and crimes against humanity. Nothing in the positive law can take away the right of the Syrian people, under natural law, to resist their own annihilation. I’m not sure that anything in Article 51 automatically prioritizes the Syrian government’s claim to state sovereignty over the right of the Syrian people to self-preservation and the right of other states to exercise legitimate defense on...
08.04.17 | |

03 Aug

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama has authorized U.S. military forces to use air power to defend U.S.-trained Syrian rebels if those rebels are attacked by the Syrian government forces. President Barack Obama has authorized using air power to defend a new U.S.-backed fighting force in Syria if it is attacked by Syrian government forces or other groups, raising the risk of the American military coming into direct conflict with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. … “For offensive operations, it’s ISIS only. But if attacked, we’ll...
03.08.15 | |