Opinio Juris weekday news wrap w19/13

Weekday News Wrap: Thursday, May 9, 2013

by Jessica Dorsey

Another clothing factory has caught fire in Bangladesh, killing eight; this news comes after a recent factory collapse with a death toll now over 900, with both tragedies putting international safety standards in the spotlight.
In other Bangladesh news, the war crimes tribunal is poised to hand down its fourth verdict today over a senior member of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party; authorities 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.

May 9th, 2013 - 8:00 AM EDT | Comments Off http://opiniojuris.org/2013/05/09/weekday-news-wrap-thursday-may-9-2013/ |

by Jessica Dorsey

Internet communications companies have reported that Syria has been cut off of “internet communication with the rest of the world.”
The World Trade Organization has a new Director General: Roberto Azevedo.
The ICC postponed Kenyan Vice President William Ruto and journalist Joshua Arap Sang’s trial as the Prosecutor is seeking to add five witnesses and the Defense has requested to vacate the trial date.
Suspected members of Boko Haram have attacked a prison in the town of Bama, freeing over 100 inmates and killing 55 people.
The Obama administration explicitly accused China’s military of attacking American government computer systems and defense contractors.
Foreign Policy features a post about the outsourcing of lethality by the US in its conflict with al-Qaeda and affiliated forces.
Human Rights Watch has called on Saudia Arabia to allow all girls to participate in sports in the Kingdom, not just those attending private schools.

May 8th, 2013 - 8:00 AM EDT | Comments Off http://opiniojuris.org/2013/05/08/weekday-news-wrap-wednesday-may-8-2013/ |

by Jessica Dorsey

Senegal Justice Minister Aminate Toure and Chadian Justice Minister Jean-Bernard Badare agreed to allow Senegalese judges to investigate various situations in Chad ahead of the prosecution of former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre.
Fifty countries and organisations are gathered in London for an international conference aimed at preventing Somalia from slipping back into abject lawlessness.
North Korea has removed two missiles from launch sites on the country’s eastern coast, after weeks of concern that Pyongyang had been ready for a test-launch.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has quietly curbed new building projects in Jewish settlements, a representative from Peace Now, an Israeli watchdog group and media reports said on Tuesday, in an apparent bid to help U.S. efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians.
An influx of people from crisis-hit southern European countries like Spain, Italy and Greece has led to the biggest surge in German immigration in nearly 20 years; the number of immigrants last year was up 13% from the previous year.

May 7th, 2013 - 8:00 AM EDT | Comments Off http://opiniojuris.org/2013/05/07/weekday-news-wrap-tuesday-may-7-2013/ |

by Jessica Dorsey

South Korea has dismissed the plan from North Korea to reopen the joint industrial complex shared by the two countries, calling the demands from Pyongyang “incomprehensible” and urging North Korea to come forward for dialogue rather than making such demands.
The Mannheim Regional Court in Germany ruled in favor of Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Google, against Microsoft in a patent dispute.
Nawaz Sharif, seen as the front-runner in Pakistan’s election race, said the country should reconsider its support for the U.S. war on Islamist militancy and suggested that he was in favor of negotiations with the Taliban.
Syria’s information minister has warned that Israeli air raids over the weekend against three targets on the outskirts of Damascus “open the door to all possibilities.”
NPR has a post on the hidden cost of the US drone program.

May 6th, 2013 - 8:00 AM EDT | Comments Off http://opiniojuris.org/2013/05/06/weekday-news-wrap-monday-may-6-2013/ |

Posts of Interest

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No, Going to the ICC Is Not "Lawfare" by Palestine
Just Security has published two long guest posts (here and here) on the ICC and Palestine by Nimrod Karin, a J.S.D. candidate at New York University School of Law who was previously Deputy Legal Adviser to Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United ...

January 22, 2015
Does President Obama Need Congress's Approval to Sign a Nuclear Deal with Iran? Can Congress Force Him to Get Their Approval?
The fight between President Obama and Congress over Cuba policy is nothing compared the brewing struggle over a U.S.-Iran agreement over Iran's nuclear program. I noticed this little foreign affairs law nugget today from the WSJ's report of this on...

January 21, 2015
Does President Obama Need Congress to Lift the Embargo on Cuba? Yes.
It looks like a big showdown is brewing between the President and Congress over Cuba policy (Here comes 2016 presidential candidate Rubio!). Some legal commentators have argued, however, that President Obama already has the legal authority to lif...

January 19, 2015
International Law as Behavior Symposium: An Introduction
[Harlan Cohen is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law] This past November, the University of Georgia School of Law and the ASIL International Legal Theory Interest Group convened a book workshop on “Internatio...

January 15, 2015
What Are International Law's "Must Reads" from the Past Decade?
In a comment to a recent post, Patrick O’Donnell noted a post from the first year of Opinio Juris in which I had taken a crack at starting a list of the “must reads “of international law. I wanted to get a discussion going over what should be t...