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,...
North Korea has sentenced US citizen Kenneth Bae to 15 years' hard labor for "crimes against the state." In a clash on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan that lasted more than two hours, one Pakistani policeman was killed and two Afghani soldiers wounded. The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the government has been failing to meet EU air quality standards and...
US President Barack Obama is making a new push to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying Gitmo is damaging US interests. Chile will be Latin America's only representative in the 2014-2015 UN Security Council. The ECHR has ruled that Ukraine violated former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's rights by detaining her for politically motivated reasons. The genocide trial against Guatemalan dictator...
The Syrian Prime Minister has survived a car bomb in Damascus, an event UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon labelled a "terrorist attack." Ban Ki-Moon also urged Syria to allow international experts access in order to establish whether chemical weapons were used. Meanwhile, in a phone call to President Putin, President Obama has expressed his concern over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The European...
For the procrastinators among us, here's another friendly reminder about our New Voices Symposium coming up in July and August. As a recap, this July, we are planning to launch a new feature called New Voices: a two-month online symposium to run alongside our regular posts. Our goal is to give students, new practitioners and emerging scholars a chance to profile...
According to a recent report, tens of millions of dollars from the CIA were delivered to the office of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai over the course of decades, meant to buy US influence in Afghanistan. Syria's neighbors are wary of a US-led intervention, should the US decide to take military action in the face of new evidence of chemical weapon use by...
Calls for Papers We have launched our own call for papers aimed at LL.M, Ph.D and S.J.D. students as well as those practitioners/academics within the first five years post-degree to participate in our New Voices symposium starting in July. The deadline for 200-word abstract submissions is in only two short days: May 1, 2013!! This serves as a reminder for the call for papers for...
In the wake of a factory building collapse in Bangladesh, in which at least 273 lives have been claimed, many are calling for reform by Western high-street brands that rely on cheap labor as the accident reignited questions about the often lethal conditions in the country's garment industry. The Atlantic offers a piece about how garment workers are pushing for...
French President Hollande is receiving a warm welcome during his visit to Beijing, which according to the Financial Times is a snub to the UK government which has not been high on China's welcome list after David Cameron's meeting with the Dalai Lama last year. US Treasury officials appeared before the House Appropriations subcommittee to push for a different allocation in US contributions...
Clashes have escalated on the Syria-Lebanon border, causing worries that Lebanon will be pulled further into the Syrian conflict. The French Parliament passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and extended the right to adopt children to same-sex couples as well, making France the 14th country in the world to do so. India is alleging that a Chinese platoon has entered its Ladakh...
Today at 4:00 p.m. EST, a hearing will take place in the US Senate entitled: Drone Wars: The Constitutional and Counterterrorism Implications of Targeted Killings; you can watch it on the webcast live. Lawfare has highlighted five ways to reform the targeted killing program ahead of today's hearing. A car bomb has exploded outside the French embassy in Tripoli. In an already tense diplomatic...
The Syrian opposition is reporting the slaughter of at least 80 people by government troops in a town south of Damascus. Human Rights Watch has accused authorities in Myanmar of conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Heavy fighting between the Nigerian military and the Boko Haram insurgents has cost almost 200 lives over the weekend. An Afghan girls' school may have been victim...
