Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

...force, as opposed to 1948 when the State of Israel was proclaimed. In other words, uti possidetis juris is relevant to the determination of the borders of the territories to which the Ottoman Empire and its successor Turkey renounced its rights and title, and regarding which the Principal Allied Powers could fix the boundaries (Mandate for Palestine, preamble, para. 1). As such, the borders between Lebanon, Syria and Jordan on the one hand and Mandatory Palestine on the other fell to be determined on the basis of the internal administrative...

As UN monitors left Syria, fighting progressed to suburbs of Damascus. US president Barack Obama has said that if Syria’s government were to use chemical weapons, the US would be forced to act. German politicians have said that they will give no leeway to Greece regarding financial reform. Israel has positioned an Iron Dome, a rocket interceptor and destroyer, on the Egyptian border following two rocket attacks on the city of Eilat. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism says that the US government must allow investigation into...

...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)...

...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...

...returnees, who ‘as wives of ISIL fighters’ solely took care of the home and family life without being engaged in any activities of the organization. The German national Sibel H. had traveled to Syria with her husband Ali S. in 2013. After he was killed, she returned to Germany. She moved back to Iraq with her second husband, Deniz B. They received an allowance of approx. 100$ and an apartment in an area controlled by ISIL. She looked after their child and he worked as a nurse in an ISIL-hospital....

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...

...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...

...given that there was a Review Conference less than two years ago. Adopting the amendment would require 2/3 of States Parties to vote in favour of it, pursuant to Art. 121(3). I will be surprised if the amendment is not taken up and adopted. Even acknowledging that states do not like to tie their hands against internal threats, there is no justification for starving civilians as part of a counterinsurgency. And, of course, NIACs regularly feature the intentional starvation of civilians — most obviously in Syria and Yemen. To be...

[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...

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...

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...

[Dr. Mohamed Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law & Affiliated Faculty at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University.] I would like to start off by thanking Opinio Juris for hosting what has evolved into something of a mini-symposium on the legality of the veto, the powers and purposes of the Security Council, and, implicitly, the values and principles underlying international law. I would also like to thank Professor Jennifer Trahan for engaging with and responding to my rejoinder...