Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

According to a recent report, tens of millions of dollars from the CIA were delivered to the office of Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai over the course of decades, meant to buy US influence in Afghanistan. Syria’s neighbors are wary of a US-led intervention, should the US decide to take military action in the face of new evidence of chemical weapon use by the Syrian government–evidence that Syria claims is “inconsistent with reality and a barefaced lie.” Iraq’s media regulator has suspended licenses of ten broadcasters, including Al-Jazeera, accusing them of...

...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...

the siege. I was joined by Hussam Alkatlaby, the Executive Director of the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre; Joost Hiltermann, programme director for Middle East & North Africa at the International Crisis Group; and Robin Peeters, the Syria Policy Officer in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You can watch a recording of the event on the University of Amsterdam website here. The panel was sponsored by the War Reparations Centre at the Amsterdam Centre for International Law (ACIL); the Amsterdam Students Association of International Law; and the Syria Legal Network....

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...

...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...

Ghana’s President John Atta Mills has died, though details are unclear as to the cause of death. Foreign Policy has more here. Vice-President John Dramani Mahama has succeeded him, taking the oath of offices a few hours after the announcement of Mills’ death. Fighting has intensified in Syria’s Aleppo. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has joined the chorus of warning Syria against the use of chemical weapons. Israel’s foreign minister has stated that it will get involved in the Syrian conflict if the Syrian army loses control over its chemical...

Let’s start with the Administration’s newly minted theory (h/t Marty Lederman for posting the operative statement) that the statutory 2001 AUMF authorizes the President’s announced campaign to use force against ISIL in Iraq and Syria. The AUMF does not plausibly extend to ISIL. In addition to the reasons my friends Jens Ohlin, Jen Daskal and others have already highlighted, let me add this: ISIL is not an “associated force” of Al Qaeda by the Administration’s own definition. In May 2013, former State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh gave a speech...

...international court with it. Syria would be an obvious choice. Maybe Venezuela for some regional diversity. The International Court of Iran, Syria, and Venezuela™ (ICISV) could then prosecute Trump despite his personal immunity — and just as importantly, Iran would then be free to arrest Trump and surrender him to the ICISV, because the Jordan Appeals Chamber has also told us that personal immunity does not apply when a state is acting on an international court’s behalf: 114. The absence of a rule of customary international law recognising Head of...

...corrupt drug dealer. He is chief of the provincial council of Qandahar and said to be more powerful than the province’s governor. A US official wrote, “While we must deal with AWK as the head of the Provincial Council, he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker. End Note.” 4. The Boston Globe reports of Senator John Kerry that he urged the return of the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace: “In the meeting last February with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa...

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...

...that we, as ordinary people, who do not have to fight in wars, still can pass moral and rational judgments on the people who do. The current Middle East conflict is a case in point.' As to 'Hezbollah's tactics of hiding among civilians,' please see, for instance, Mitch Prothero's piece, 'The "hiding among civilians" myth,' at Slate.com: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/07/28/hezbollah/ Seamus Let's not forget the situation in the Occupied Territories.... Please see: The B'Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories http://www.btselem.org/English/index.asp Palestinian Centre for Human Rights http://www.pchrgaza.org/...

...the lives of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean must involve search and rescue operations near the shores of Libya, Amnesty International said on Saturday as hundreds more people arrived in Italy from North Africa. Americas U.S.-led forces targeted Islamic State militants in Syria with five air strikes from Sunday to Monday morning and conducted 26 strikes against the group in Iraq, the U.S. military said. Air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition in Syria have killed 2,079 people, including 66 civilians, since the start of the aerial campaign against Islamic State...