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

December 11, 2013
More on Ukraine: All Normative Geopolitics is Local
As the political crisis in Ukraine over the government’s decision not to sign an Association Agreement with the EU passes its second week, this conflict and the positioning over other Russian “Near Abroad” countries (especially Armenia, Moldova...

December 11, 2013
"We Have Waited Too Long for Our Freedom. We Can No Longer Wait."
The drive from Paarl to Cape Town was only forty-five minutes. The plan was for Nelson Mandela to address the world at the Grand Parade, the great public square adjacent to the Fort of Good Hope, where South Africa’s founding father Jan van Riebec...

December 8, 2013
Why the U.S. is Not Invoking International Law to Oppose China's ADIZ
China's East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) has spawned tons of media commentary, so much so that I have had little to add and can barely keep up with all the coverage. Still, there is one small legal point that bears some further d...

December 3, 2013
The Protests in Ukraine and Normative Geopolitics
One hundred and ten years ago next month, British geographer Halford Mackinder presented a paper at the Royal Geographical Society in London entitled “The Geographical Pivot of History,” setting out the basic tenets of what we now call “geopoli...

December 1, 2013
The OTP's Remarkable Slow-Walking of the Afghanistan Examination
The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the ICC just released its 2013 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities. There is much to chew over in the report, but what is most striking is the OTP's slow-walking of its preliminary examination into crime...