Search: extraterritorial sanctions
22 Mar Weekday News Wrap: Thursday, March 22, 2012
...the country. In Syria-related sanctions, the EU aims to put a travel and shopping ban on President al-Assad’s wife Asma, in addition to other steps they have already taken against the nation. South Africa urges the EU to suspend the airline carbon scheme while the NY Times reports that the carbon plan could pay off for airlines. In response to the US move to lift financial sanctions on 11 countries who have significantly cut oil purchases from Iran, China slams the US’ position, calling it “misguided and selfish.” Columbian troops...23 Apr Weekday News Wrap: Monday, April 23, 2012
...over the Euro zone. In the Czech Republic, 100,000 protestors demonstrated in Prague against corruption and austerity measures. The UN Special Rapporteur on Rights of Indigenous Peoples will visit the US in order to perform the first ever investigation into the rights situation of Native Americans. With respect to the the French presidential elections over the weekend, the BBC has profiles of Sarkozy and Hollande. The EU is imposing new sanctions on Syria. The UN’s extra monitors are expected today. The EU is expected to ease sanctions on Myanmar today,...01 Jan Divesting Federal Foreign Affairs Power? The Sudan Accountability & Divestment Act
...efforts to bring about significant improvements in the conditions in Sudan through sanctions against the Government of Sudan and high level diplomatic engagement and by supporting the deployment of peacekeepers in Darfur. This Act purports to authorize State and local governments to divest from companies doing business in named sectors in Sudan and thus risks being interpreted as insulating from Federal oversight State and local divestment actions that could interfere with implementation of national foreign policy. However, as the Constitution vests the exclusive authority to conduct foreign relations with the...27 Feb Security Council Refers the Situation in Libya to the ICC
The referral is part of a larger set of sanctions against Libya. From the UN News Centre: The Security Council today voted unanimously to impose sanctions against the Libyan authorities, slapping the country with an arms embargo and freezing the assets of its leaders, while referring the ongoing violent repression of civilian demonstrators to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In its Resolution 1970, the Council obligated all United Nations Member States to “freeze without delay all funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories, which are...28 Jan Torts over Torture
...coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. The US Torture Statute (18 USC 2340) is similar: “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to...31 Oct Hariri Report Leads to Security Council Action
...involvement of any State in this terrorist act would constitute a serious violation by that State of its obligations to work to prevent and refrain from supporting terrorism.” As CNN summarized: Last-minute diplomatic haggling deleted a direct reference to the threat of sanctions on the Syrian government, but the effect of Monday’s resolution is the same. The resolution is under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which holds open the ultimate possibility of the Security Council considering the use of force with failure to comply. Russia and China simply would...25 Jan Goldsmith, ICC and Darfur
...that more harm could be done to the value of international humanitarian law by throwing in a referral to the court as a way to garner support for sanctions against Khartoum. Goldsmith says that “even though criminal courts have done little to bring reconciliation to Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia,” or even “deter future crimes,” it is nevertheless “possible that the concrete threat of an ICC prosecution could temper the killings in Darfur without adversely affecting the recent peace deal…” While he seems to recognize that this is a pretty...27 Mar Posner and Sykes Book Symposium: Comments by Steve Charnovitz
...term (p. 282). The books states that sanctions are measured by “substantially equivalent” trade concessions (p. 283), but does not explain where the term “substantially” comes from as it is not a term from the treaty or the jurisprudence. In addition, the book posits that the WTO dispute system provides gap fillers for an incomplete bargain that approximate what WTO members would have negotiated had they been able to address the contingency in the treaty text (p. 284). But the book fails to note that the WTO judges do not...
09 Nov Warfare to Lawfare under CERD: Armenia v. Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan v. Armenia
...and for Ukraine v. Russia in Crimea) and issues of non-intervention (e.g. Qatar v. UAE on sanctions and travel bans against Qataris) to be complained of under the cover of racial discrimination, ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure, targeted murders and torture as well as other human rights protected by the CERD. The strategy is to cleverly re-characterize the dispute around racial discrimination in order to pass the step of jurisdiction ratione materiae. A clear example of this reformulation would be Ukraine’s argument in the Ukraine v. Russia case that “while it...28 Sep Reforming Intelligence Oversight
...of a regime of classified information that is at once far too sweeping but, for precisely that reason, largely incapable of having the teeth necessary to keep secrets. It is a classification regime that serves as nip for the cat, and a marker of access rather than a lockbox for necessary secrets. A better system – not likely in our lifetimes, presumably – would be far less ability to classify things, including a classification system clearly tied to a range of sanctions from loss of job to prison. But the...