Targeted Killing of Avowed Terrorists: Three US Presidents and Three Cases in Point
During the Barack Obama presidency, the Justice Department prepared a 16-page unsigned, undated “White Paper” that outlined the administration’s legal reasoning justifying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-targeted killings of terrorism suspects if an informed high-level official decided that the target was a high-ranking al-Qaida figure or affiliate who posed an imminent threat of violent attack against [...]
US Senate passes bill to assist veterans exposed to toxic burn pits
The US Senate Wednesday advanced the Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2021 (HR 3967) which will help veterans injured due to exposure to toxic military burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. The PACT Act plans to provide “health care, presumption of service-connection, research, resources, and other matters related to veterans who [...]
Now facing further rounds of terror attack, Israel must prepare itself along the intersecting dimensions of law and strategy. Law, the first dimension, is universal. It applies to all combatants, everywhere. Strategy, the second dimension, is integral to the creation and maintenance of any single state’s national security policies. From the beginning, a recurrent Palestinian [...]
UN experts warned the Australian government to take action to rescue 46 Australian citizens, including 30 children, from camps in north-eastern Syria. In a letter released Sunday, UN experts described how the conditions in the camps constitute violations of human rights and meet the standard for torture. The 46 Australian citizens are in the Al-Hol [...]
Human rights activist launches guidelines at UN on collecting evidence of sexual assault
Human rights activist and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad Wednesday announced the launch of a new global initiative for collecting evidence of sexual assault during war. This new initiative, known as the Murad Code, was created through efforts from the UK government, Murad, and Institute for International Criminal Investigations. It aims to support [...]
I. Introduction The world’s attention is focused on Ukraine and the vicious war ravaging the country, forcing millions of people to flee. But is this Russian invasion different than other invasions by a major world power in terms of violations of international law? It is and it is not. On the one hand, the Russian [...]
“…Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, family ties.” — Address by the President [...]
The mass exodus of women and children from Ukraine has sparked the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. More than three million refugees have poured out of Ukraine since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country on February 24. Upwards of 1.8 million of those refugees have crossed into Poland. And [...]
The United Kingdom’s highest court Monday denied WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s appeal of a decision allowing his extradition to the US because there were not any substantial arguments on points of law. The appeal followed a series of cases between Assange and the US government requesting his extradition from the UK. Initially, District Judge Vanessa [...]
The other day, when I woke up in the morning, I thought that I should go to Kyiv and do my part by remembering George Orwell and the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, and paying homage to Catalonia. My 66 year old body shortly thereafter said that the Ukrainians are not asking for [...]
