Search: palestine icc

...her mission had gone to Palestine, “I imagine that the discussion here would be amazingly different.” Regarding the challenges to the credibility of the report, she told Council members that the issue on credibility is “not about ours, it’s about yours.” (Williams begins speaking at 5:35). UN Watch addressed the Council on Friday afternoon: “If the Council cannot endorse the recommendations of this report, it will cast a shadow upon the reputation of the UN as a whole…” Watch our UN speech. Singling Out Israel Special Agenda Item Returning: The...

...are posed for clashes and unrest. The oldest brother of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has said he was beaten up by what he calls government-hired thugs. The UN Conference on Trade and Development has decried the rising levels of poverty in East Jerusalem, blaming what it terms Israeli “segregation policies” for deepened economic isolation for Palestinians. The full report can be found here. US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is pushing for renewed talks between Israel and Palestine ahead of his next visit to the middle east in two weeks....

Australia will abstain in the upcoming UN vote on whether to grant non-member state status to Palestine. The body of Yasser Arafat will be exhumed in Ramallah today, to determine whether his death was the result of polonium poisoning. Ehud Barak, Israel’s Minister of Defence, has announced his retirement from politics. A map of China on new Chinese passports is controversial with its neighbours as it incorporates disputed areas in the South China Sea. Several neighbours are refusing to stamp the passports or are stamping them with their own version...

...speech as prepared for delivery. Further on UN appearances, Kevin wondered whether Benjamin Netanyahu’s “red line” about Iran’s nuclear bomb could still be taken seriously. Other posts also dealt with Iran. Kevin asked why progressive bloggers were so willing to overlook the MEK’s involvement in the assassination of Iranian scientists when claiming that the organization has not been involved in terrorist attacks for years, and Deborah Pearlstein wrote about new drone technology reportedly developed by Iran. In a guest post, Chantal Meloni argued why the Palestine-ICC saga is far from...

...one hand, and targeted killing directed against terrorist suspects, on the other. In the former case, I do not believe that we can or should move away from homogenous status of combatant; any other standard will overreach the technology now or in the foreseeable future. I suppose that one could imagine that in the very special circumstances of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, one could see on both the sides of regular soldiers and non-state actors, it would be possible to imagine a genuinely necessity based standard, beyond the fact of status....

...Although the fulfilment of this obligation comes as a second step after ensuring the safe passage and safety of the evacuees, this obligation does not appear to have been met either. Third, the evacuation of the civilian population must be carried out within the occupied territory. Israel is internationally recognized as the occupying power in Palestine – the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip (See UNGA, A/ES-10/L.25, para. 5, ICRC). The UNGA has rejected any Israeli attempts to forcibly transfer the Palestinian civilian population as Israel has...

For Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad it’s all about Israel. The cartoons were not an act of freedom, they were a desperate act of hostages. This week Ahmadinejad used the cartoon controversy to blame the United States and Europe for “being hostages of the Zionists.” He then criticized the double-standard of the freedom to insult the prophet while imposing criminal sanctions on those who deny the Holocaust. “I ask everybody in the world not to let a group of Zionists who failed in Palestine … to insult the prophet. Now in...

...response following Hamas’ massacre on 7 October. The submission has also brought about reflections on active allyship against the decades-old Israeli occupation of Palestine—something not to take lightly in the face of the longstanding call to have decolonisation as a concrete act rather than a metaphor or a mere workshop title. From what follows, the position of the Court on 26 January was particularly under scrutiny. Beyond a mere ‘international lawyerly’ issue, it seemed to represent a significant opportunity for the Court to demonstrate an international institution’s capabilities (and possible...

[Mona Ali Khalil is an internationally recognized public international lawyer with 25 years of UN and other experience dealing with the rule of law and international peace and security efforts including peacekeeping, sanctions, disarmament and counterterrorism.] In the face of a veto by any permanent member of the UN Security Council blocking enforcement action against the mass atrocities in Palestine, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen and elsewhere, is the international community helpless to help – failing to fulfill its responsibility to protect? Proponents of the use of force for purposes of...

Sponsored Announcements Admissions to the third edition of the Master in Democratic Governance – Democracy and Human Rights in the MENA Region (DE.MA) are open: first round deadline – 30 May 2016; second round deadline – 30 June 2016. DE.MA was created thanks to the support of the European Union and of the Danish Institute for Human Rights. It is based on a partnership between EIUC and the following universities: International University of Rabat (Rabat, Morocco), Birzeit University (Birzeit, Palestine), St Joseph University (Beirut, Lebanon), Ca’ Foscari University (Venice, Italy)...

...policy the wrong way, not knowing that Congress is out to lunch and that US policy has not changed. That’s where the risk comes in. It’s what makes this case less than ideal for adapting the Constitution to the new global dynamic. The Middle East is a throwback to the old world. Arguments like Noah Feldman’s here still make a lot of sense when it comes to Israel-Palestine, even if they don’t make so much sense anywhere else. But the risk may be small enough that the Court is willing...

...an unnamed senior leader in the context of arrest warrants being requested for Israeli leaders that “this court is built for Africa and for thugs like Putin.” Of course, the fact that the ICC ultimately did proceed to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant demonstrates that occasionally the wheels of justice move forward even in the face of resistance from key players in the West. Doing so, however, can come with a heavy price for those involved (see here, here and here regarding US sanctions on ICC...