Search Results for: 2017-07-26

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 [...]

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 [...]

Spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani stated in a news conference Monday that Iran will continue to seek the release of former Iranian official Hamid Nouri, whose conviction and sentence of life in prison for human rights abuses in Sweden was upheld last week in the Svea Court of Appeal. Kanaani stated that the [...]

Panama’s Supreme Court unanimously held Tuesday that the 20-year concession for the Canadian Cobre Panamá copper mine was unconstitutional. In its judgement, the courts found that Law 406 of October 20, 2023, which granted the mining concession to Minera Panama, the Panamanian subsidiary of Canadian First Quantum Minerals, was unconstitutional and struck down the entire law. The [...]

“The man who laughs has simply not yet heard the horrible news.”          Berthold Brecht An Existential Task Until the end of his presidency –  and even after his open complicity in subverting the United States Constitution on January 6, 2021 – Donald J. Trump held effectively unchecked nuclear command authority. Now, after multiple criminal [...]

Public attitude toward minority rights usually can serve as a good baseline for testing a country’s level of general democracy and tolerance. Croatia became a European Union member in 2013 and is criticised for its undemocratic society. Inside the country, there are constant debates on this ground about whether Croatia should be affiliated with Western [...]

The conflict that erupted in April between the Sudanese National Army and the Rapid Support Forces wreaked havoc on Sudan, and has ultimately taken an appalling toll. Thousands were killed and millions displaced. Buildings were burned and infrastructure lay in ruins, instilling fear of a spiraling descent into a full-scale civil war. Even before the warfare [...]

Hunter Biden sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Monday for unlawful disclosure of his tax information and for related violations of the Privacy Act. Biden’s complaint mentioned two IRS agents by name: Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler. In June, the House Committee on Ways and Means voted to release transcripts of interviews with Shapley [...]

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of powerful Russian mercenary group Wagner, died in a plane crash on Wednesday, alongside the group’s alleged founder Dmitry Utkin. “The Wagner leadership has confirmed the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin,” according to the Wagner Group Telegram channel, which for several hours prior had urged the public to “not panic” as rumors [...]

US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed former President Donald Trump’s counter-defamation suit against author E. Jean Carroll on Monday. Carroll has accused Trump of sexual assault, with a jury finding that Trump did sexually assault Carroll and defamed Carroll by accusing her of lying. Trump claimed that Carroll’s statements on CNN after the verdict [...]