Search: kony 2012

28 Mar Weekday News Wrap: Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has reportedly accepted Kofi Annan’s six points peace plan, but the US Ambassador to Syria expressed skepticism that Assad’s words would translate into deeds. Navi Pillay has told the BBC that the Syrian forces are targeting children. UN estimates put the civilian death toll in Syria at over 9000. Iran announces that it will hold nuclear talks with the P5 and Germany on April 13, possibly in Istanbul, although the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, and the...

03 Aug Weekday News Wrap: Friday, August 3, 2012

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has quit as Syria’s peace envoy after becoming frustrated with “finger-pointing” at the UN while the battle in Syria rages on. IPS offers more context here. China has expressed its regret. Meanwhile, a UN resolution on Syria goes to the General Assembly today, criticizing the Security Council for failing to take action and denouncing the use of force on civilians by the Syrian government. The UN Security Council did, however, demand and end to foreign support of rebels in the Democratic...

21 Dec Weekday News Wrap: Friday, December 21, 2012

The ICTR issued its final decision yesterday, sentencing former Rwandan minister Augustin Ngirabatware to 35 years in prison. An Argentine court sentenced former Interior Minister Jaime Smart to life in prison for crimes against humanity during the nation’s 1976-1983 “Dirty War.” The UN sees no prospect of an end to the violence in Syria, according to Ban Ki-Moon, and urges unity from the Security Council. The Security Council unanimously approved a two-track intervention into Mali. Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has said that the door is open...

13 Apr Weekday News Wrap: Friday, April 13, 2012

China will begin delivering oil ships to Iran in May, two months ahead of a European ban on tankers carrying Iranian crude. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an op-ed that Iran hopes for dialogue and trust from all sides going forward in nuclear talks and that it will be a process, not an event. The Guardian has an article on the legality of a military strike on Iran, featuring Alan Dershowitz, Anthony D’Amato, Bruce Ackerman and Opinio Juris‘ own Kevin Heller. The UN Security...

22 Dec Weekend Roundup: December 15-21. 2012

This week on Opinio Juris, Kristen Boon followed up on her discussion last week about changes towards more transparency and fairness in the UN’s Al Qaida sanctions regime. Craig Allen contributed a guest post on the ITLOS’ interim order for the release by Ghana of Argentina’s ARA Libertad. UNCLOS was also central to Duncan Hollis’ post on China’s submission to the Continental Shelf Commission in relation to the dispute regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Peggy McGuinness congratulated Diane Amann, Leila Sadat and Patricia Sellers on their appointments as special...

04 May Weekday News Wrap: Friday, May 4, 2012

Prosecutors are seeking an 80-year sentence for Charles Taylor. The sentencing will take place on May 30th. The US solar industry is pushing the government to bring a WTO complaint against India’s local content requirements in the production of solar panels. Despite recent nationalizations in Bolivia and Argentina, the IMF has declined to call it a trend. Speaking in Beijing, American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the US is willing to work with North Korea if it reforms. China has said that dissident Chen...

04 Aug Weekend Roundup: July 28 – August 3, 2012

This week on Opinio Juris we provided a forum to two guest posters, Gabor Rona and Michael W. Lewis, who continued their earlier conversation on targeted killing over at Lawfare. In his first post, Gabor asked whether the politicians and military leaders in charge of defining the criteria for targetability will take a more liberal attitude because their own risk is zero and argued that the concept of ‘co-belligerency’ cannot as easily be transposed from an international armed conflict to a non-international armed conflict. Michael Lewis disagreed that...

24 Oct Weekday News Wrap: Wednesday, October 24, 2012

More than 50 rockets have been fired from the Gaza strip into South Israel,an Israeli officer was wounded in the exchange of fire, and one Palestinian was killed when Israel launched rockets back into Gaza. Senior Japanese and Chinese diplomats met last week to discuss the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. The US is finding itself at both ends of two new WTO disputes after the WTO Dispute Settlement Body established a panel to review Chinese anti-dumping and countervailing duties on cars from the US, and another to examine whether...

10 Nov Weekend Roundup: November 3 – 9, 2012

With the US elections dominating the headlines this week, Peter Spiro argued that the impact of the US president on populations who are unable to vote in the election, and are not even allowed to make campaign contributions, reveals another limit of state-based institutions. Deborah Pearlstein asked whether President Obama’s promise that a “decade of war is ending” includes the “war” against al-Qaeda, and started thinking about the law and policy implications as the US shifts from the war paradigm to a counter-terrorism framework. Two posts dealt with...

22 May Weekday News Wrap: Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Iraq is buying US-made drones in order to carry out surveillance over their oil fields. After a suicide bomber kills 90 people in Yemen, al-Qaeda vows more attacks until the US-backed campaign against militants stops. The US is apparently weighing their stance on secrecy of the drone program employed to carry out targeted killings, according to the Wall Street Journal. Former dictator of Guatemala, Efrain Rios Montt, will face a second genocide trial after a judge ordered he could be prosecuted for ordering a 1982 massacre that...

17 Nov Weekend Roundup: November 10 – 16, 2012

This week on Opinio Juris, we finished last week‘s symposium on the Oxford Guide to Treaties, recently edited by our own Duncan Hollis. Peter Spiro discussed Kal Raustiala’s chapter on NGOs and treaty-making, and argued that we should look beyond traditional treaties to understand the full scope of NGO participation in international lawmaking. A final set of posts discussed the increasing public nature of treaties. Geir Ulfstein argued that treaty law alone cannot answer all the important legal questions that arise as a result of treaty bodies exercising...