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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

11 Apr

...are the instances where the de jure State is absent due to having lost control over a territory, with disappearances through non-State actors occurring under such circumstances. This may, for instance, be the case during a non-international armed conflict, where civilians find themselves living under the control of armed non-State actors. One only has to think of the time when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) gained effective control over large parts of north-western Iraq and Eastern Syria, exercising control over 10 million people, with many individuals disappearing...
11.04.25 | |

14 Oct

...at the University of Oxford, in partnership with the International Bar Association and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Simon Skjodt Center for Genocide Prevention, that seeks to understand how UN mandate holders with a focus on accountability can be better supported. These include Fact-Finding Missions (FFMs), Commissions of Inquiry (CoIs), and the generation of UN accountability mechanisms – the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria (IIIM), the International Independent Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), and the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD) – referred...
14.10.20 | |

16 Sep

UN chemical weapons inspectors have handed their report into an alleged gas attack in Syria to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Secretary Ban stated in a UN meeting that an expert team’s report will likely confirm the use of chemical weapons in the August 21 attack on Damascus. At PhD Studies in Human Rights, a post discusses Secretary Ban’s comments and the presumption of innocence. French President Francois Hollande called for a U.N. resolution on Syria backed by the threat of punitive action to be voted by the end of...
16.09.13 | |

01 Dec

...United Nations-African Union office in Khartoum. Middle East and Northern Africa An Egyptian court has designated the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group a “terrorist organisation” and banned it in the country. A U.S.-led coalition carried out at least 30 air strikes in Syria against Islamic State militants in the northern province of Raqqa on Saturday, a monitoring group said. At least 50 fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) have been killed in the past 24 hours in Syria’s Kobane, the biggest...
01.12.14 | |

03 Sep

...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...
03.09.24 | |

21 Aug

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...
21.08.12 | |

17 Jul

...international organisation (he currently heads two investigative teams, in Myanmar and Syria, for the Commission for International Justice and Accountability). Lenayapa’s comments suggest that Kenya thinks neither African candidate is viable, given that Fatou Bensouda is from an African country. And he clearly believes that Roy’s election is precluded by the Rome Statute. (I think that’s wrong — as I’ve suggested on Twitter, the ASP could elect Roy if the current Deputy Prosecutor, James Stewart, was willing to resign.) Let me start by saying that I think any of the...
17.07.20 | |

09 Mar

...to Mexico’s nationals. (Update: Marty Lederman, as usual, was first to notice this article and the first to comment. Michael Froomkin has the text of the withdrawal and more comments about the timing of the withdrawal) A couple of insta-observations: (1) The ICJ might find that the U.S. withdrawal itself was not in conformity with international law. In particular, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (if it is accepted as customary international law) seems to prevent countries from withdrawing from a treaty unless that treaty specifies that withdrawal...
09.03.05 | |

22 Mar

refugees are adequately protected. Harold Koh closed off the symposium with his reflections on Sale’s legacy. Also continuing from last week was our Ukraine Insta-Symposium. Boris Mamlyuk argued for a better empirical understanding of the facts on the ground to assess the legality of intervention in Ukraine. As the events in Crimea unfolded, questions of recognition and annexation came into the spotlight with a post by Anna Dolidze on the non-recognition of Crimea, one by Chris analyzing the legality of recognition of a secessionist entity, and one by Greg Fox...
22.03.14 | |

28 Jan

...already messy area of law incoherent in light of the Court’s own most recent precedent, as I noted in an OJ Insta-Symposium contribution last spring. What I’d like to explore now is another question raised by this terrific series of posts: the extent to which state law incorporating international law may authorize suits for causes of action arising abroad after Kiobel. This question is both especially urgent because it involves a potential alternative avenue for litigating human rights abuses abroad in U.S. courts, and especially vexing because it juxtaposes different...
28.01.14 | |

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 | |