Search Results for: 2007-03-08

The ongoing conflict engulfing Israel and Palestine continues to raise significant issues of international law and policy. My earlier contribution focused on the jurisdiction and substantive law of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Here I address the ongoing litigation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court). Because the crime of genocide can be [...]

The Paris court of appeal lightened a one-year prison sentence for former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy was facing charges over alleged illegal campaign financing in his 2012 re-election campaign. The court also on affirmed a lower court’s guilty verdict. Vincent Desry, the former president’s attorney, claimed in a press interview Wednesday that Sarkozy was [...]

Last week, the national union representing waste and sanitation workers in France gave notice of an encore round of strikes set to start the day before the next step of the unpopular retirement reform’s legislative process: this Friday, April 14, the Conseil constitutionnel is expected to either validate or suppress all or some of the bill that had [...]

Within the past 12 months, Jacinda Ardern has resigned as New Zealand’s prime minister, former Australian PM Julia Gillard’s famous “misogyny speech” celebrated its tenth anniversary, and the high-profile retrial against Australian Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of colleague Brittany Higgins was dropped for posing a “significant and unacceptable risk” to [...]

Following months of protests over rapidly rising inflation rates and economic turmoil in Sri Lanka, the government has imposed a series of repressive measures against its people. Officials were banned from expressing their own concerns about Sri Lanka’s beleaguered economy via social media platforms. Certain neighborhoods were subject to heightened security requirements which included an [...]

In 2002, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey, defeating Kemalist hegemony, there was a glimmer of hope in the West for the overwhelmingly Muslim country. However, the experience of Turkey over the past 20 years is one descending into an authoritarian regime with clampdowns [...]

On March 8, the opposition parties moved a resolution for a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Imran Khan (PM) under Article 95(1) of the Constitution. The PM ceases to hold office if “a majority of the total membership of the National Assembly” passes a no-confidence resolution. The opposition needs 172 votes, which it does not [...]

Abstract: Earlier, as part of Russia’s escalating aggression against Ukraine – an aggression that now includes armed attack on a nuclear power plant – President Vladimir Putin placed his nuclear forces on high alert. Correspondingly, the United States should now recalibrate how best to “play” the increasingly complex “games” of military nuclear strategy. Most worrisome, [...]

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday sanctioned three Lebanese individuals for involvement in corruption in Lebanon. The designated individuals are two businessmen, Jihad al-Arab and Dany Khoury, and a member of parliament, Jamil Sayyed. The individuals named by OFAC were added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, which bars US [...]

Abstract: Following US withdrawal from Afghanistan, America’s security focus will turn more expressly to Iran. The core problem with America’s Afghanistan withdrawal was not one of timing or tactics, but of original misconception. In essence, the “Afghanistan Problem” stemmed from an initially underestimated and misunderstood military operation. Looking ahead, Afghanistan’s incoherent conclusion means, inter alia, [...]