In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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02 Mar

Eric Posner on international law and Ukraine ("exhaustively", in his own description): The international law commentariat has been pretty quiet about the most important geopolitical event so far this year. Hello? Anyone want to offer an opinion? Let me fill in the silence: 1. Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine violates international law. 2. No one is going to do anything about it. International law...

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02 Mar

Saturday began with reports that Russia had seemingly used private security contractors to take control of the airport in Simferopol, Crimea. Then reports (like this one from CNN) of President Putin requesting from Russia’s Parliament an authorization to use military force in Ukraine because of “threats to the lives of Russian citizens and Russian military personnel based in the southern...

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02 Mar

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The World Bank has suspended a planned $90m loan to Uganda meant to strengthen its health care system after its president signed into law a bill prescribing harsh jail terms for homosexual offenses.  More than 200 migrants seeking to enter Europe have stormed over a fence into Spain's...

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01 Mar

This week on Opinio Juris,  we closely followed the situation in Ukraine. Julian argued that international law principles are unlikely to provide a solution for the crisis since it would require the US and Russia respectively to defend or reject principles they have rejected or defended in other crises. He also reassured Daily Mail readers that the Budapest Memorandum does not...

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27 Feb

In December 2013, the UN Secretary General launched a new Human Rights initiative called “Rights Up Front”.    Primarily a coordination tool for the UN Secretariat, the plan outlines six actions that can help the UN system meet its responsibilities regarding human rights: Action 1: Integrating human rights into the lifeblood of staff, so that they understand what the UN's mandates and...

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27 Feb

The European Parliament has just overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the use of armed drones. I'll leave it to others to do the hard work of analyzing the resolution, but I couldn't let this paragraph pass without a mention (emphasis mine): E. whereas drone strikes outside a declared war by a state on the territory of another state without the consent...

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24 Feb

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Nigeria has closed its northern border with Cameroon to block the movement of Boko Haram members who use the area as a launch-pad for attacks. French troops may stay much longer than originally planned in the Central African Republic. Civilians in South Sudan have been the main target of...

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22 Feb

Weekend again, time for a roundup of the blog! This week, Rogier Bartels provided a guest post in two parts on the temporal scope of application of IHL, asking when a non-international armed conflict ends. Chris followed the situation in Ukraine closely with a post on the background of the conflict and the country's long road to stability. He also wrote...

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21 Feb

The recent altercation between members of Pussy Riot and Cossack militia that was caught on video is a red flag signalling a broader issue in the Russian Federation: the resurgent power of the Cossacks and their relation to the Russian state, especially to keep politically-disfavored groups in check. But who are the Cossacks?  A paramilitary organization? A political party? An ethnic...

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