Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

...seekers who arrive illegally by boat from ever entering Australia again, rejecting criticism from rights lawyers who say it would breach the U.N. Refugee Convention. UN/World United Nations member states have voted overwhelmingly to start negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, despite strong opposition from nuclear-armed nations and their allies. The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has said that he is “appalled and shocked” by the high number of rockets indiscriminately launched by armed opposition groups on civilian suburbs of Syria’s western Aleppo in...

...city on Saturday afternoon killing at least 18 people, a hospital source said, after a night-time attack by Boko Haram insurgents on the outskirts. South Sudan has decided to expel the world body’s top humanitarian official based in the conflict-torn nation, according to the UN, which called on the government to immediately reverse its decision. Middle East and Northern Africa The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has seized territory from both Syrian government forces and rival rebels over the weekend, further expanding the area it has...

...the weapons the neocons have in their arsenal these days. The first, as Heilbrunn notes, is Barack Obama, or more precisely discontent with his apparently reactive and hesitating approach to foreign and security policy, exemplified by situations such as Ukraine, Syria and the rise of ISIS. If you read the fine print, to the extent there is any, the neocons like Cheney and Bill Kristol don’t have any master plan or worked out strategy of their own for dealing with these problems. They appeal to the heartwarming (for some Americans)...

...the COVID-19 virus. In Syria, where there is credible evidence to demonstrate that Syrian and Russian forces have targeted hospitals and ad hoc medical facilities, the risk of large numbers of infected persons receiving no treatment is clear, particularly where there are tens of thousands in detention facilities. Yemen has been forced to contend with a devastating attack by the military might of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and has been ravaged by disease and starvation. An outbreak of COVID-19 would devastate an already fragile state. Bangladesh –...

...skillfully argued that members of English, American and French governments could be held liable as accomplices on these interpretations of complicity for arming Libyan rebels, and that Russian officials might face a similar fate in Syria. I am far from certain that these cases would satisfy the more traditional concept of complicity I set out here, but if they do, I see no rationale for circumscribing the scope of defensible criminal doctrine. By the same token, should the ICTY suddenly redefine torture to accommodate practices that are now ubiquitous in...

...the EU rather than be granted it automatically. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF, has settled the civil lawsuit with a maid out of court for an undisclosed amount of money. The EU has boosted the status of Syria’s opposition, calling the coalition the “legitimate representatives” of the Syrian people. Over at Lawfare, Ashley Deeks has a post about Syria, chemical weapons and possible US military action. For those who have not seen it yet, the second batch of basic materials for the Jessup Competition is now available....

The Liberian Daily Observer has reported that Judge Sow of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has been called by the defense team of Charles Taylor and will testify in his appeal. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has accused both the government and the rebel forces in Syria of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, said that Palestine will make a bid this month at the UN General Assembly for an upgraded status to non-member observer state, now...

...demands to limit the rights of European Union migrants if London helps it bolster the NATO presence in central Europe, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told Reuters. The head of a special team investigating alleged abuses by British soldiers in Iraq has said he’s confident there will be sufficient evidence for war crimes prosecutions. Americas The U.S.-led coalition carried out 24 strikes against Islamic State militants on Wednesday, putting pressure on the group around Ramadi and Mosul in Iraq and along the Mar’a line in Syria, the U.S. military said in...

...the communique released at the end of a two-day summit in Brisbane. UN/World Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity on a large scale in areas under the group’s control in Syria, UN investigators say. In its first report focused squarely on acts by ISIL, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented on Friday a horrifying picture of what life was like in areas controlled by the group, including massacres, beheadings, torture, sexual enslavement and forced pregnancy....

...“foreign law”, and discussed the legal differences between the Libyan intervention and a possible military intervention in Syria. He also questioned why the faculty of Osgoode Hall Law School rejected a $60 million donation for the study of international law. Deborah Pearlstein challenged claims that the political and legal difficulties surrounding detention have caused an increase in the targeted killing operations. Kevin Heller posted about the disarray at the ECCC, as catalogued in a note by the recently resigned International Co-Investigating Judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet. Kevin argued that while Henry Ford...

Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce: Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recalled the scene at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, when the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was interrupted by the strike on Syria. “Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria,” Ross said. “It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.” As the crowd laughed, Ross added: “The thing was, it...

...by mythical belief, blind faith, or a kind of stubborn optimism that has turned out to be cruel. Other recent contributions within the discipline have followed a similar pattern, across different fields of inquiry. Sigrid Boysen has, for instance, drawn attention to the narrative effects that it has had when the field of international environmental law places its origins at the 1972 Stockholm Conference, thereby seeking to distance the law from its entanglements with patterns of colonial exploitation. Or one may consider Jessica Whyte’s history of human rights, which draws...