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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

21 Jul

...expedited pathways to asylum, often bypassing the usual bureaucratic hurdles. This contrasts sharply with the treatment of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, or African countries, who face lengthy processing times, detention, or outright denial of entry under similar circumstances. This differential treatment highlights selective humanitarianism that aligns more with political and cultural affinities than with the principles of equality and non-discrimination that underpin international law. Critique Beyond the West: It is important to acknowledge that the issue of double standards is not confined to Western nations alone. For instance, South Africa’s...
21.07.25 | |

07 Jul

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Burundi’s parliamentary elections on Monday were not fair or free and human rights were violated, the United Nations said on Thursday. Middle East and Northern Africa US President Barack Obama has said that the US-led coalition battling fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was “intensifying” its campaign against the armed group’s base in Syria. A suicide bomber from Syria’s al-Qaeda offshoot – the Nusra Front – has blown himself up...
07.07.15 | |

13 May

...list’, in theory, does not create clear problems for IHL.  That said, this is far from simple when several states are involved, and various sources of intelligence are being collated. A recent example of this, and of the challenge of being the intelligence source to start the targeting cycle, is found in 2016 over Syria. In conducting airstrikes near Deir ez-Zor, coalition forces mistakenly targeted what were referred to as: “forces aligned with the government of Syria.” This strike involved aircraft from Denmark, Australia, the UK and the US, with...
13.05.22 | |

15 Aug

The United Nations Secretary General’s fifth Report on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was released last week. This Report is titled “State Responsibility and Prevention” and focuses generally on governance mechanisms and early warning. It also mentions the situation in Syria, stating that “[r]ecent events, including in the Syrian Arab Republic, underline the vital importance of early action to prevent atrocity crimes and the terrible consequences when prevention fails.” On the whole, the Report is consistent with prior work, but doesn’t contain much that is new. The Report focuses in...
15.08.13 | |

17 Jul

...is what they need to is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s all over… Blair: Dunno… Syria…. Bush: Why? Blair: Because I think this is all part of the same thing… Bush: (with mouth full of bread) Yeah Blair: Look – what does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine. If you get a solution in Israel and Palestine. Iraq goes in the right way Bush: Yeah – he’s [through] Blair: Yeah…. He’s had it. That’s what all this is about –...
17.07.06 | |

20 Dec

[Christian Durisch Acosta holds a MAS in International Law of Armed Conflict (Geneva Academy) and has worked with several UN organisations (OHCHR in Honduras, UNAIDS in Mozambique, OCHA in Burkina Faso).] On 6 December 2019, the Rome Statute was amended as to include the intentional starvation of civilians as a war crime in non-international armed conflict. Up to then, it only figured as a war crime in international armed conflicts. Undoubtedly, this significant development was spurred by the horrific accounts on siege-induced mass starvation in Syria and Yemen. The second...
20.12.21 | |

17 Sep

continent that the court unfairly targets Africans. War crimes blamed on the Syrian opposition are predominantly being carried out by foreign fighters, according to a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria. Turkey will provide the UN Security Council and fellow members of the NATO military alliance with details of the circumstances of its shooting down of a Syrian helicopter. Bangladesh’s highest court has sentenced to death a leader of the main Islamist party convicted of crimes against humanity during the war for independence from Pakistan in 1971....
17.09.13 | |

11 Jul

...Monday. Four South Africans attempting to fly to Syria have been arrested in Johannesburg and will face charges related to terrorism, police said on Sunday. Middle East and Northern Africa A suspected U.S. drone strike wounded four Al Qaeda fighters in Yemen’s central Marib province on Sunday, local tribesmen and media said, hours after the exiled Yemeni president flew in to meet Arab military leaders in his war against the Houthi rebels. NATO allies have agreed to provide increased military support, including surveillance planes, to Middle Eastern and North African...
11.07.16 | |

20 Sep

This week on Opinio Juris, we hosted an insta-symposium on the Scottish Independence Referendum. David Scheffer surveyed the legal terrain in case of a yes vote, Stephen Tierney discussed how Scotland’s move to independence would be characterised under international law, Milena Sterio argued that international law could develop a norm containing a positive right to secession under certain circumstances, Jure Vidmar looked at Scotland’s position in the EU, Tim Sparks took a long view, and Christopher Connolly discussed the phrasing of the referendum question. Finally, Chris asked whether there will...
20.09.14 | |

07 Mar

...into an overt conflict?” II. The CIA, “Deniable” and “Covert” Strategypage, as it happens, has an interesting report (H/T Insta) on special forces, commandos, and intelligence personnel on the ground in Libya now — saying in particular that Egyptian special forces teams are assisting the rebels now, and that some US personnel are on the ground, partly for intelligence but also to protect diplomats and other “nationals” assistance. (It would be astonishing, of course, if many countries did not have intelligence agents on the ground in Libya, whether strictly to...
07.03.11 | |

13 Jun

[Dr. Elizabeth A. Wilson is Assistant Professor at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University.] In the “Insta-Symposium” conducted here after the Supreme Court’s Kiobel decision, Peter Spiro linked to a piece by Samuel Moyn about Kiobel posted on the Foreign Affairs website and said he was “sympathetic” with Moyn’s conclusion that “human rights advocates would be better served to abandon the ATS, even to the extent that Kiobel leaves the door open.” Not willing to go quite so far as Moyn in celebrating the ATS’s...
13.06.13 | |

02 Jun

Cross-posted at Balkinization I hate to interrupt the terrific insta-symposium on the Supreme Court’s decision in Samantar already underway at Opinio Juris, but I did want to note the much-anticipated release of Philip Alston’s report as UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Killings. I take it the relevant press release and report will be available here. I’m just now paging through it, but for now, a few brief notes. Broadly, while acknowledging the sometime-legality of targeted killing, the report cautions that “circumstances in which targeted killings are alleged to be legal”...
02.06.10 | |