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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

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 | |

27 Jun

As a second boat of refugees in less than a week sinks on its way from Indonesia to Australia’s Christmas Island, Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to revive an earlier plan to have refugees processed in Malaysia in exchange for the acceptance of genuine refugees. Syria’s President Assad has claimed that his country is in a state of war. Notwithstanding the recent wave of defections, US intelligence reveals that Assad’s inner circle is still intact. Senior UN diplomats are convening a meeting of world leaders on Syria for this...
27.06.12 | |

14 Jul

...on Saturday as a U.N. envoy warned of chaos if divided lawmakers did not make progress on Sunday towards naming a government. Europe must open its doors to more Syrian refugees, having welcomed only a “miniscule” number while Syria’s neighbors have reached “saturation point”, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday appointed veteran U.N. official Staffan de Mistura, a former U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq, to replace Lakhdar Brahimi as the international mediator seeking an end to Syria’s civil war....
14.07.14 | |

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 | |

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 | |

18 Apr

...presence” as being insufficient to overcome the statutory presumption against extraterritoriality. This language, and the Supreme Court’s decision not to otherwise mention the corporate liability issue, was enough for Judge Scheindlin to revisit the corporate liability issue. I don’t really buy this sub silentio interpretation of Kiobel, but to give credit where credit is due, this argument was previewed in our Kiobel insta-symposium by Jordan Wells, a third year law student. Let’s just say Judge Scheindlin really went out of her way to re-open this question. My views on the...
18.04.14 | |