UN Security Council (UNSC)
295 Articles

Why the US Failure to Support an ICC Referral for Syria does not Protect Israel (or American Interests)
As we watch and wait for the outcome of the destruction and disposal of the chemical weapons in Syria, the issue of accountability for war crimes and/or crimes against humanity…

Humanitarian Intervention and Global Legal Norms
Thank you to Harold Koh for spurring (here and here) a discussion about some of the most important issues of our time—on matters concerning wars of choice and building an effective…

Syria and the Law of Humanitarian Intervention (Part III – A Reply)
My recent two-part essay on Syria, posted on this blog, made both a policy claim and a legal claim. My policy claim was that despite undeniable political miscues, President Obama’s…

Security Council Resolution on Syria is Final but Russia Begins Chipping Away
On Friday, I posted an analysis of the draft Security Council Resolution on Syria questioning the strength and scope of its legal obligations. The United Nations has now released…

Are the Press Reports of the Security Council’s Draft Syria Resolution Accurate? How weak or strong is it?
After weeks of diplomatic wrangling, the permanent members of the Security Council emerged last night with a compromise draft resolution on chemical weapons in Syria. The key part…

The U.S.-Russia Agreement on Syrian Chemical Weapons: More Questions Than Answers
The Framework Agreement negotiated by the United States and the Russian Federation to bring Syria’s chemical weapons under international control seems like an elegant way out…

The ICC as the Sword of Damocles
The destruction of the chemical weapons would not be enough. An unexplored option exists to help resolve the situation in Syria: the Security Council could refer the Syrian situation…