Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
01 May Humanitarian Intervention
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...
16 Feb Symposium on Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force: What Narratives Do
...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...
13 Dec Symposium: Review of John Heieck, A Duty to Prevent Genocide
...the consistent case law adopting a narrow interpretation of the crime there is a broader use of the term, by NGOs, by journalists, by politicians, and even by UN bodies. For example, recently a fact-finding commission of the Human Rights Council suggested that the persecution of the Rohingya could be characterized as genocide. A few years earlier, another commission of inquiry of the Council said much the same about the Yazidi in Syria. There was a time, some decades ago, where these matters were still open to debate by reasonable...05 Oct Weekly News Wrap: Monday, October 5, 2015
...of the 193 members of the United Nations to rail against the International Criminal Court (ICC), which he said has become a political tool to target African leaders. Boko Haram Islamist fighters killed at least two Niger soldiers and wounded four others in an attack on a village near the Nigerian border, army officers said on Friday. Middle East and Northern Africa At least 39 civilians, including eight children and eight women, have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria in the past four days, the Syrian Observatory for...
12 Feb Enriching International Norms on Election Monitoring as a Humanitarian Project
...international involvement to protect people’s vote. To this end, the Security Council Resolution 1975 (2011) installed Alassane Ouattara as the President of Ivory Coast and the Security Council Resolution 2337 (2017) endorsed the recognition of Adama Barrow as the President of Gambia. Prioritizing “democratic legitimacy” over “effective control” by the Security Council is an important practice to consider. Security Council’s complete disregard for the decisions made by the electoral authorities in the Ivory Coast and Gambia over the election results, provides further evidence to support Thomas Franck argument that elections...
03 Nov How Focusing on Non-State Actors Can Change the IHL Narrative
...prepare any development thereof”. It is also a prominent feature of humanitarian discussions that, in different fora, NGOs advocate for new rules or the modification of existing ones. In describing this phenomenon, however, it is also necessary to consider the role of NSAGs in shaping, interpreting, and making the law, for instance through the conclusion of special agreements between the parties to the conflict or via the adoption of action plans with the UN. In 2019, two NSAGs from the Central African Republic, and one from Syria, signed the latter,...17 Feb The Absence of Practice Supporting the “Unwilling or Unable” Test
Regular readers of the blog know that one of my hobbyhorses is the “unwilling or unable” test for self-defense against non-state actors. As I have often pointed out, scholars seem much more enamored with the test than states. The newest (regrettable) case in point: my friend Claus Kress, who is one of the world’s best international-law scholars. Here is what he writes in an otherwise-excellent contribution to Just Security about the use of force against ISIL in Syria (emphasis mine): It therefore follows not only from the right of self-defense’s...25 Mar Does the Tallinn Manual Allow States to Kill Hackers? Not Really.
...a party to the conflict (members of the armed forces or members of an organized armed group) would suffice, while other insist that the act must be intended to further the hostilities. All agree, however, that some real connection is required. Taken together, the armed-conflict requirement and the nexus requirement make it extremely unlikely that a state could legitimately use lethal force against members of a hacker collective like Anonymous. There are currently no international armed conflicts, although Syria constantly threatens to become one. And hackers don’t tend to work...25 Aug Members of UN Security Council Discuss LGBT Issues
13 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council met yesterday to address LGBT issues for the first time in a closed session chaired by Chile and the US. The focus was on persecution of gays in Syria and Iraq. As an Arria-formula meeting, the discussion was confidential, however news reports after indicate the group discussed the Islamic State’s targeting of LGBTQ residents of Iraq and Syria. Samantha Power, US Ambassador to the UN, told the diplomats that “we are coming together as a Security Council to condemn these...