Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]
Search Results for: 2012-08-01
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on Monday accused the US of orchestrating a covert campaign to interfere with the upcoming Russian presidential election, set to take place on Mar. 15-17. The spy agency claims the administration of US President Joe Biden has ordered a group of American NGOs to stifle voter turnout in a bid [...]
Explainer: The Israel-Hamas War and the International Criminal Court
The current conflict engulfing Israel and Palestine raises significant issues of international law and policy. This is part one in an anticipated two-part series that will discuss some of the relevant legal questions before the International Criminal Court (ICC; Part I) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ; Part II). With both courts located in [...]
Federal judge rules Georgia congressional maps violate Voting Rights Act and must be redrawn
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ordered Georgia’s General Assembly to redraw the state’s enacted Congressional Districts Thursday, finding the districts were in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The 516-page opinion covers three consolidated cases: Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity v. Raffensperger and Grant v. Raffensperger, which both [...]
UN rights chief: Haiti needs international 'specialized support force' to confront gang violence
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk Tuesday issued an urgent call for international action in Haiti to confront escalating gang violence, including a “time-bound specialized support force.” Haiti is currently experiencing a crisis of instability and gang violence which “continues to spiral out of control.” Türk has previously expressed concerns about violence in [...]
Israel prime minister considers mediation in Russia-Ukraine conflict
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday stated he would consider mediating the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Netanyahu qualified that any proposal would need to come from either Russia, Ukraine or the US. In a briefing to reporters, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Maria Zakharova covered Russia’s [...]
As we come closer to the opening of the Winter Olympiad in Beijing, China, a peoples in Western China is being destroyed “in whole or in part.” The world will assemble in the name of sport ignoring what is happening a few hundred miles away. It is a state-sponsored genocide by the very nation that [...]
Can Litigation Help Save the North Atlantic Right Whale From Extinction?
As conservation organizations and governments around the globe grapple with the devastating effects of climate change and overexploitation, the legal battle fought over the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, may provide insights into how litigation can help—or hinder—efforts to save species from extinction. [...]
“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” – John F. Kennedy Fukuyama’s “The End of History” paper claimed that the western liberal democracy is the final form of the human-governance evolution. His argument relied on the Democratic Peace Theory, originating from the early 1700s, which states that most democratic [...]
The controversial Grassy Mountain Coal Project has been effectively shelved following a decision from Canada’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Jonathan Wilkinson. In a statement released Friday, Wilkinson determined that proposed open-pit coal mines in the Crowsnest Pass region of Alberta would likely “cause significant adverse environmental effects” as defined by subsections 5(1) [...]