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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

23 Jul

A top UN envoy, Leila Zerrougui, special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, has warned officials and anti-government fighters in Syria risk prosecution as war criminals for atrocities against children. The US House Intelligence Committee says it is now willing to supply weapons to Syrian rebels despite the risk of their ending up with al-Qaeda allies. Additionally, top US military officials have outlined a range of intervention option plans in Syria, from instituting no-fly zones to conducting limited attacks on military targets. Iran condemned the EU’s decision...
23.07.13 | |

02 Apr

...the daily number of civilian casualties in Syria. Al Jazeera has an exclusive about the UN’s plans should the Syrian regime fall–a plan that includes deploying peacekeeping forces, a move beyond its normal role as no others in the international community are interested in getting involved. The mood in the Malian city of Timbuktu is tense in the wake of deadly clashes between rebel and Malian forces over the weekend. Relatives of approximately 90 Yeminis held at the US Guantanamo Bay prison are protesting their “very poor” conditions at Gitmo...
02.04.13 | |

19 Apr

[Jennifer Trahan is Associate Clinical Professor, at The Center for Global Affairs, NYU-SPS, and Chair of the American Branch of the International Law Association’s International Criminal Court Committee. The views expressed are those of the author.] Postings on Opinio Juris seem fairly squarely against the legality of the U.S. missile strike last week into Syria. Let me join Jens David Ohlin (blogging on Opinio Juris) and Harold Koh (blogging on Just Security) in making the contrary case. When NATO intervened in Kosovo in 1999, member states did not have UN...
19.04.17 | |

21 Mar

Mauritania has agreed to extradite ex-Libyan chief-of-intelligence Abdullah al-Senussi to Libya. The Economist outlines the world’s biggest arms exporters based on a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. US President Barack Obama is slated to visit the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea today ahead of his upcoming visit with South Korean president, Lee Meyung-Bak. Western powers diluted the language of a U.N. Security Council resolution regarding Syria in order to garner Russian support; in response, speaking from Jakarta, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon once again...
21.03.12 | |

11 Apr

...Syria. Foreign Policy outlines the options for Syria, in case the plan does not succeed. According to its Foreign Minister, William Hague, the UK may seek a Security Council decision referring Assad to the ICC. In a Reuter’s exclusive, China’s ZTE trading firm had planned on selling $10.5 million (€8 millon) worth of embargoed computing equipment to Iran, shedding some light on how Iran is able to get American tech products despite sanctions. The Philippine Navy is in a standoff with Chinese ships. Colombia’s foreign minister reports that Venezuelan President...
11.04.12 | |

19 May

...the special protective regime of IHL for certain objects, including works and installations containing dangerous forces and the natural environment (including water resources), and specific methods of warfare, such as starvation and the prohibition against attacking, destroying, removing, or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works. These protections are vital because even when such objects become military objectives, they shall not be attacked save for minor exceptions.  In situations of occupation, IHL imposes additional obligations on...
19.05.25 | |

07 Dec

Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez will miss Friday’s regional trade summit in Brazil, raising questions about his health. US warships are shifting in order to monitor the planned rocket launch by North Korea, while the US still urges Pyongyang to cancel this exercise. Violence has surged around Damascus as Syrian government forces shell rebel-controlled areas. The UN Special Envoy for Syria held discussions with US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, and her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on a creative solution for Syria that may involve ousting President Assad. The King of...
07.12.12 | |

04 Sep

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the US has agreed upon a draft AUMF, authorizing President Obama to carry out strikes in Syria. Foreign Policy has a post warning that this 60-day authorization may be just a prelude to intervention in the Middle East as well as a piece entitled The Syrian Abyss. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country may approve a military operation in Syria if evidence shows that Damascus carried out chemical weapons attacks, but only if the operation is conducted with U.N. approval. Kenya’s parliament debated...
04.09.13 | |

19 Feb

...well as national courts, including others that operate under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Such qualitative outcomes are the harvest of seeds which have been planted across the international criminal justice ecosystem and include: the dedication of curious and skilful prosecutors that do not shy away from looking across jurisdiction or collaborating with investigative mechanisms, such as IIIM-Syria and UNITAD (p.35-36). The consideration of the work of the Syria COI, Yazda and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and other European criminal justice authorities successfully facilitated through Eurojust contributed...
19.02.25 | and |

08 Nov

...giving UN humanitarian agencies and their partners authority to breach Syria’s sovereignty by using border crossings to access that state. The rationale was to permit this violation of sovereignty ‘in order to ensure that humanitarian assistance, including medical and surgical supplies, reaches people in need throughout Syria’. The Security Council, in a distinct yet not unrelated situation of war and crisis then, might have acted under a different power and source of legitimacy than the Flotilla, but it should not be considered as less political, or as being more humanitarian....
08.11.14 | |

08 Oct

Islamic groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for yesterday’s Israeli strikes in the Gaza strip. Amnesty International has reported that Rwandan military intelligence services have engaged in torture, unlawful detention and enforced disappearances of civilians . Sudanese state media reports that the border between Sudan and South Sudan will reopen today, after a security agreement was reached last month. Turkish forces fired across the border into Syria on Sunday after a shell launched from Syria landed in Turkey’s border town of Akcakale, underlining Ankara’s warning...
08.10.12 | |

09 Feb

...renditions.” As Human Rights Watch notes: The CIA has regularly transferred detainees to countries in the Middle East , including Egypt and Syria , known to practice torture routinely. There are reportedly 100 to 150 cases of such “extraordinary renditions.” In one case, Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian in transit in New York , was detained by U.S. authorities and sent to Syria . He was released without charge from Syrian custody ten months later and has described repeated torture, often with cables and electrical cords. In another case, a...
09.02.06 | |