Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

Violent clashes in China’s western Xinjiang province, home to the Uighur minority, have killed 27 people. President Obama gave his long-awaited speech on climate change yesterday, but it fell short of environmentalists’ expectations. During his visit to the Middle East, US Secretary of State Kerry has been pressed by Saudi leaders to respond to the “genocide” in Syria. US officials are hoping to stage peace talks over Syria as soon as possible, but US peace envoy Brahimi is doubtful that they will take place in July. What do roses and...

...Rwanda’s female football revolution–football is helping Rwandan women overcome the trauma of the 1994 genocide. Middle East and Northern Africa Iraqi security forces say they have struck the convoy of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, in an air strike near the country’s border with Syria. Syrian troops backed by Russian air strikes have advanced against fighters in the centre of the country as Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Moscow’s intervention in the conflict, saying it would aid efforts to...

...in the Security Council’s authorization of military intervention. Nonetheless, within weeks, critics suggested that the intervention had gone beyond the intended Security Council mandate and had become a convenient cover for regime change. Not long after, as is well known, the situations in Bahrain and Syria began to spiral downwards, and many argued that intervention was again needed and appropriate. Nonetheless, the Security Council has not garnered enough support to invoke the doctrine since Libya. China and Russia have used their veto to block Security Council resolutions on Syria with...

killed in cross-border gunfire near the Lebanese border, the Israeli military has said. Syrian government air raids using barrel bombs on rebel-controlled areas of Syria’s second city of Aleppo killed at least 76 people, including 28 children, activists said. Asia Japan and Southeast Asian nations have called for freedom of the high seas and skies, amid heightened tensions over China’s new air defense zone in the East China Sea. China’s first moon rover has touched the lunar surface and left deep traces on its loose soil, state media reported, hours...

...proven to be a critical international justice tool. In the past few years, it has allowed governments to address some of the asymmetry in international justice by creating new – albeit limited – paths to justice where other avenues are blocked. For example, in light of the inability of the UN Security Council to refer the situation of Syria to the ICC given Russia’s veto, investigations and prosecutions in third countries are currently the only option for individual criminal justice for Syrian victims and survivors.  The landmark first trial for...

serve justice to the victims of atrocities. Similarly, countries hosting large numbers of Yazidi victims and witnesses, as well as significant numbers of asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq, such as Germany and Sweden, are at the forefront of accoutability efforts in relation to the genocide against the Yazidis and international crimes committed against other groups in Syria and Northern Iraq. Establishing a fully operational war crimes unit, which will be able to exercise universal jurisdiction over violations of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, is therefore a crucial step...

...of prosecution for fleeing having to indirectly support the crimes have a claim to persecution, or does it only attach to people fleeing having to directly perpetrate the crimes? What about conscientious objectors? For answers, we turn to the cases of an American fleeing participation in the 2003 US-Iraq War and a Syrian fleeing conscription into the Syrian army in the 2011 Syrian civil war. While it Is n’t EZ, P recedent Ca n be O ur Shepherd In April 2007, an enlisted American helicopter maintenance mechanic named André Shepherd...

...Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters. Saudi authorities have stepped up their crackdown on online dissidents, Human Rights Watch said, alleging that prosecutors and judges use “vague law” to charge citizens for peaceful tweets and social media comments. Nearly 800 people have been rescued from boats in distress in the Mediterranean Sea in the last 48 hours, Italian and Libyan officials said. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said he and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan he had discussed a transition of power in Syria away from President Bashar al-Assad during a...

...enormous controversy, with the 2011 military intervention in Libya and the failure to act with regard to Syria, causing bitter divisions between the Council’s five powerful permanent members. The international community also completely failed to halt atrocities in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Yemen. While this is not an exhaustive list, it points to the enormity of the political challenge that currently faces us. So far, the twenty-first century has been plagued by toxic nationalism and resurgent xenophobia. The number of people displaced by persecution, conflict and atrocities is at its...

to protect Turkey against a Syrian attack. Additionally, NATO has warned Syria against using chemical weapons, with an immediate international response as the consequence. The Guardian is reporting that the former spokesman of the Syrian foreign affairs ministry has defected and is on his way to the US. Mali’s government has agreed to holding peace talks with two separatist rebel groups. The European Union is mulling a collective response to Israel’s planned expansion of settlements into the West Bank, while Germany’s Angela Merkel is nonplussed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...

...US and EU for a comprehensive trade and investment pact are set to kick into higher gear, following a highly-anticipated “political stocktaking” meeting between the two sides’ top trade officials. US prosecutors plan to seek the extradition of Mexico’s most wanted man, drug cartel kingpin Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, to face trial in the United States after he was captured in Mexico. Middle East The UN Security Council achieved rare unity to act on Syria’s civil war when Russia and China supported adoption of a resolution to boost aid access in...

middle: Algeria (84), Argentina (93), Brazil (70), Paraguay (111), Peru (70), Iran (105), Libya (105), Syria (93). According to the press release by TI’s chair, Huguette Labelle, corruption is “rampant” in half of the countries of the world. He further argues that there is a strong correlation between corruption and poverty. “Corruption eats away at the economies of poor countries. The perception of endemic corruption scares off foreign investors and has a knock-on effect on economic growth. A corrupt government siphoning off a country’s great mineral wealth, for instance, is...