Search: kony 2012

According to a Kenyan military spokesman, Kenyan forces have captured the Somali port city of Kismayo, a bastion for Al-Shabbab fighters. At the UN General Assembly, China’s foreign minister accused Japan of stealing the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said he will seek a vote on an upgraded status for Palestine to non-member state, like The Vatican, from the UN General Assembly. At the UN, Tunisia’s President has called for the creation of an International Constitutional Court with the power to declare domestic laws...

The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change kicks off today in Doha, Qatar, for a last ditch effort to negotiate new emission reductions before the current ones expire at the end of the year. The Guardian has an article about what to expect. The BBC has an article about Mahmoud Abbas’ (non-)role in the recent Gaza conflict and the impact thereof on the upcoming UN vote on observer status for Palestine. Abbas has called on Britain to...

The WTO General Council yesterday approved Tajikistan’s accession package, opening the way for membership 30 days after ratification of the package by Tajikistan. The ACLU will file a petition this morning with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission over the treatment of Jose Padilla by the US government since his designation as ‘enemy combatant’ in 2001. Mali’s Prime Minister resigned after the military arrested him for not working in the interests of the country, while he was on his way to France. The United States and France differ...

This week on Opinio Juris, we continued a few conversations from last week. Kevin Jon Heller clarified his argument about the retroactive acceptance of the ICC’s jurisdiction, and challenged the assumption that Palestine was not a state before last week’s UNGA vote. Deborah Pearlstein advanced three reasons for the importance of Jeh Johnson’s recent speech on the conditions for calling an end to the war on terror. Continuing on the war on terror, Kevin expressed concern over the extension of US targeting policy in Afghanistan to “children with...

...the ICC that arrangements were being made to transfer Mr. Gaddafi to Tripoli. At the beginning of March 2012, the ICC focal point assured the OPCD that Mr. Gaddafi would be transferred from Zintan to Tripoli in a matter of two weeks. In the May 2012 admissibility challenge, the Government indicated that it was “focused on negotiating the safe and orderly transfer of Mr. Gaddafi from a secret location to a specially constructed prison facility in Tripoli”. 271. During the October admissibility hearings, the Government expressed its view that it...

This week on Opinio Juris, we shared what our Readers’ Survey taught us about our readers, and we implemented a widely requested new feature: the Opinio Juris Job Board. You can access the Job Board here or via the link on the right-hand sidebar. If the survey has left you wanting to know more about Opinio Juris, check out Chris Borgen’s recent TV interview about the blog’s origins. Recent research has shown that we have become one of the top 10 cited blogs, as Kevin mentions here. Peter...

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has asked the ICTY for a new war crimes trial, accusing prosecutors of delaying the disclosure of crucial information. Ecuador will decide on the application of political asylum from WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, this week. Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, has said officials must weigh that if he were to be extradited to the United States, he may face the death penalty. In other Assange news, the Australian island where he lived as a child is contemplating a monument in his honor....

Foreign Policy in Focus reports on Europe’s immigration dilemma after the Arab Spring. IMF Chief Christine Lagarde has attracted the ire of the Greeks over her comments in a Guardian interview last week that it is payback time. The UN Security Council has condemned Syria over the massacre of at least 108 people in the city of Houla. The Syrian government denies involvement and The Telegraph reports how Syria accuses the UN and Western envoys of a “tsunami of lies” over the massacre. The UK Foreign Secretary...

This week on Opinio Juris, Roger Alford marked Memorial Day with the Battle of Blenheim poem, and Deborah Pearlstein weighed in on the discussion about Chris Hayes’ controversial suggestion that the label of “hero” is too often used to refer to US service personnel. Deborah also posted a snippet from the NY Times report on Obama’s “Kill List” in the conflict with al-Qaeda. A few days after the report was published, Julian Ku asked whether the mild fallout can be seen as a solidifying of the legal framework...

International observers have criticized last weekend’s elections in Ukraine citing systematic problems in the political and electoral system. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is in Algeria, discussing how to tackle the growing presence of Islamist rebels in Northern Mali. Japan is seeking an exemption on US oil sanctions against Iran. Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble tells the UK: “EU needs you.” Presseurope covers the latest turmoil in Europe as Strasbourg’s capital status has been called into question, with MEPs favoring a centralization of power only in...

The US-backed Korean-American Jim Yong Kim was named the next president of the World Bank, in a move that drew criticism about the purported dominance of the post by the United States. The Philippines will take its dispute with China in the South China Sea to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Meanwhile, Tokyo’s governor wants to use public fund to purchase islands in the East China Sea, which are the subject of a territorial dispute with China. Following the coup in Guinea-Bissau,...

The cease fire in Gaza appears to hold, in what is seen as a test for the new Egyptian government’s ability to influence Hamas. More than 20 people have been killed in a suicide attack on a Shiite procession in Rawalpindi, in northern Pakistan. The Taliban has claimed responsibility. After successfully capturing Goma, the rebels in Eastern Congo are vowing to march on to Kinshasa. Mexico has asked for the creation of a WTO Panel to rule on the legality of Argentinian import restrictions, after consultations between...