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Search: kony 2012

03 Jul

Syria’s President Assad has expressed regret at the downing of the Turkish jet last month and has vowed to apologize should it be established that the jet was shot down in international airspace. Human Rights Watch has released a report on arbitrary arrests, detention and torture in Syria since the beginning of the civil unrest in March 2011. A Reuters article discusses how the failing of diplomacy in Syria is pushing some states to get more actively involved in the dispute. UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay...
03.07.12 | |

12 Apr

Dioncounde Traore will be sworn in as Mali’s interim president today and is tasked with pulling the nation in turmoil back on the right track. Syria has said it will comply with its truce deadlines today by halting military activity, but reserves its right to combat terrorist attacks. Kofi Annan says that Iran can be part of Syria’s solution. In the wake of the Arab Spring, start-up social media and networking companies are thriving in the Middle East. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu will propose direct talks with Palestinian...
12.04.12 | |

02 Apr

A New Hampshire woman will be retried for immigration fraud. She allegedly lied about her involvement in the Rwandan genocide when applying for asylum in the US. US authorities deported a former leader of the Liberian Peace Council who had been living in Rochester since 2006 to the West African country. He is suspected of human rights abuses and war crimes, including the recruitment of child soldiers. His deportation is the first-ever under the Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2008. The Center for Constitutional Rights reports that...
02.04.12 | |

18 Apr

An Italian kidnapped by al-Qaeda insurgents in Algeria and held for 14 months has been freed in northern Mali. Denmark has established a Commission of Inquiry into its role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. EJIL has an in-depth post about it here. The Arab League has urged Syria to implement the ceasefire plan after being briefed by Kofi Annan. The definition of piracy is in dispute ahead of a piracy trial in Virginia. The African Union has suspended Guinea-Bissau from all activities after its recent military...
18.04.12 | |

02 Aug

Syria’s president Al-Assad has praised the government forces, but is keeping a low profile. US president Obama has signed a secret order to provide support to rebel forces in Syria. A video has emerged of men, allegedly loyal to the Syrian regime, being lined up in Aleppo being shot point-blank by rebel forces. In a recent report, Amnesty International has accused members of Syria’s government of committing crimes against humanity in the current conflict. Reuters offers an analysis proffering that there is no good outcome to the...
02.08.12 | |

07 Nov

In a roundup of some of the big news coming out of the US elections, President Barack Obama was elected to serve a second term, the Republicans have kept control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats still control the Senate, Maine and Maryland have legalized same-sex marriage and Washington state and Colorado voted to legalize marijuana for all uses.The world markets react to the news of Obama’s reelection. Same-sex marriage legislation, which included the right to adoption, has been upheld by the Spanish constitutional court....
07.11.12 | |

17 Dec

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm at the worsening violence in Syria, including the reported mass killing of Alawites and alleged firing of long-range missiles on Syrian territory. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea celebrated its 30-year anniversary. France reported that officials from the Afghan government, the Taliban rebel movement and other factions would meet this week near Paris to discuss the country’s future. Libya’s ruling national congress ordered the temporary closure of its borders with four of its neighbors over the weekend and...
17.12.12 | |

21 May

Sudan has freed four captured foreign workers, initially held for “spying” for South Sudan. AFP reports on gun battles between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in Beirut, triggering fears of spillovers of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon. A Voice of America blog post reports that the NATO’s missile defense shield for Europe has entered “interim capability”. The Associated Press has received footage from Israeli human rights organization B’tselem allegedly showing a lack of intervention by Israeli soldiers as settlers fired at Palestinian protestors during clashes on Saturday. Reuters...
21.05.12 | |

27 Jun

As a second boat of refugees in less than a week sinks on its way from Indonesia to Australia’s Christmas Island, Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to revive an earlier plan to have refugees processed in Malaysia in exchange for the acceptance of genuine refugees. Syria’s President Assad has claimed that his country is in a state of war. Notwithstanding the recent wave of defections, US intelligence reveals that Assad’s inner circle is still intact. Senior UN diplomats are convening a meeting of world leaders on...
27.06.12 | |

15 Dec

[Craig H. Allen is the Judson Falknor Professor of Law at the University of Washington in Seattle.] On December 15, 2012, one phase of the dispute between the Argentine Republic and the Republic of Ghana over the “seizure” of the Argentine frigate ARA Libertad while in a Ghanaian port came to an end, when the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg, Germany ordered Ghana to “forthwith and unconditionally release the frigate ARA Libertad” and to “ensure that the frigate ARA Libertad, its Commander and crew...
15.12.12 | |

22 Sep

This week on Opinio Juris, we posted Harold Koh’s speech on international law in cyberspace, delivered earlier this week, as part of our efforts to make important international law speeches more readily available. The decision by the Obama administration to requalify the tragic events in Libya on September 11 as a terrorist attack rather than a spontaneous reaction provides a further basis, according to Julian Ku, for the legality of any US retaliation using armed force, including on the basis of the UAMF. Julian also followed up on...
22.09.12 | |

23 Oct

Iran has said it may stop oil production if Western sanctions tighten. The United Kingdom will double the number of drones it has in Afghanistan for combat and surveillance missions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany could take part in assisting a European mission to Mali that would train troops to fight Islamist insurgents in the north of the country. Former US President Jimmy Carter has said that the Israel-Palestinian peace process has reached a crisis point and he accused Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu of not...
23.10.12 | |