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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

09 Sep

...Court of Arbitration would be a forum for such peaceful settlements. Back here in The Hague, a palace to house that court was rising. Now 100 years later we honor von Suttner, and the civic activism that can move nations. It may seem strange to celebrate the centennial of the Peace Palace when today’s great powers are at odds over what to do in the face of carnage in Syria. Whether public opinion is—or even should be—taken into account in such decisions of “high politics” is also at issue. But...
09.09.13 | |

05 Oct

...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...
05.10.15 | |

11 Dec

...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....
11.12.12 | |

13 Dec

...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...
13.12.18 | |

27 Feb

Western powers have said that Iran is considering their offer of lifting some financial sanctions in return for a scaled-back nuclear program from Tehran. Saudi Arabia has purchased a large amount of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to rebel forces in Syria. Fighting rages on in Syria, with battles nearing a 12th-century mosque in Aleppo, threatening to further damage the historic structure. Symantec Corp researchers have found that the Stuxnet virus that was deployed against Iran began in November 2007, two years earlier than previously thought. An...
27.02.13 | |

04 Mar

By now, many readers -especially those who follow me on Twitter, will have figured out that I have a weird hobby: I like keeping track of who says what about international law in times of crisis. I’ve done it for the Syria strikes of 2018, the Venezuelan elections of 2018, the recognition of Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela in 2019, the attack on Qasem Soleimani in 2020, and now, of course, the crisis in Ukraine. In the beginning, I tracked the reactions to Russia’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk...
04.03.22 | |

25 May

...Sunday, while in Syria the government said the Islamists had killed hundreds of people since capturing the town of Palmyra. Saudi forces and Yemen’s Houthi militia traded heavy artillery fire which destroyed part of the main border crossing between the two countries overnight, residents said on Sunday, an escalation of the two-month war. Hezbollah is fighting across all of Syria alongside the army of President Bashar al-Assad and is willing to increase its presence there when needed, the leader of the Lebanese Shi’ite movement said on Sunday. Asia A group...
25.05.15 | |

05 Feb

For those who try to keep up with the shifting nature of radical Islamist groups – groups too many in the media sometimes wrongly link to Al Qaeda –the stories earlier this week on the group formerly known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, now calling itself ISIS, are significant: Early Monday morning the leadership of al-Qaeda disowned Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), the most effective of its two franchises fighting in Syria, in a maneuver that could alter the trajectory of the fight against President Bashar Assad....
05.02.14 | |

29 Jan

...a ransom. Of course, paying the ransom wins the release of the individual hostage. However, it also emboldens and encourages ISIS and other terrorists to perpetrate more kidnappings. It is precisely for this reason that the U.S. refuses to negotiate and pay money to ISIS. The ransom payments are bankrolling the ISIS war in Iraq and Syria. So the European countries that are paying the ransoms are providing (indirectly and under duress) the resources for ISIS to fight the military coalition that is trying to stop them from carving its...
29.01.15 | |

11 May

[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] I, too, would like to thank Opinio Juris for our mini-symposium and dialogue on the use of the veto in the face of atrocity crimes. I hope it stimulates further thought, analysis and work on these important issues. For those who missed the debates, I posted attacking the legality of Russia’s veto in the face of chemical weapons use in Syria, Dr. Mohamed Helal defended Russia’s veto use as consistent with the drafting of the UN...
11.05.18 | |

30 Apr

The Syrian Prime Minister has survived a car bomb in Damascus, an event UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon labelled a “terrorist attack.” Ban Ki-Moon also urged Syria to allow international experts access in order to establish whether chemical weapons were used. Meanwhile, in a phone call to President Putin, President Obama has expressed his concern over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) sentenced five men to prison for their roles in an organ trafficking syndicate. Afghan President Hamid Karzai...
30.04.13 | |

26 Sep

...situation. Middle East and Northern Africa The United States called Russia’s action in Syria “barbarism”, while Moscow’s UN envoy said ending the war was “almost an impossible task”, as government forces relentlessly bombed the besieged city of Aleppo. Yemen plans to complain to the U.N. Security Council over what it says are Iran’s weapon transfers to Houthi allies fighting the internationally recognized Yemeni government, the foreign minister said on Saturday. Four alleged members of al Qaeda’s Yemen branch, including a local commander, were killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike...
26.09.16 | |