United Nations (UN)
1,271 Articles
UN Committee on Racial Discrimination reports on U.S. compliance: National Security Highlights
Last week, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued its Concluding Observations (full text) assessing U.S. compliance with the International Convention…
ISIL = Genocide?
As we have discussed, the United States has launched further military action in Iraq. These operations follow limited airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant…
UN Disarmament Board: New proposals to improve drone strike transparency and accountability
A new report of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (full text) contains a number of recommendations related to both autonomous weapons and current…
More focus on jus ad bellum in Gaza
More than 1900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, hundreds of thousands are displaced and the material destructions are formidable. There have been several claims that Israel…
Verdict in Cambodia: Too Little Too Late, but Still Important
Amidst all the developments in the Middle East, we could not allow the verdict rendered by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in Case 002 to go unacknowledged.…
The Needle in the Haystack: Finding the Women, Peace and Security Norms in the Gaza Conflict
Operation Protective Edge and the costs of war in the latest round of the Israel-Palestine conflict have dominated all our newspaper headlines in the past month. Images of harm…
Major New United Nations Report Rebukes Five Eyes’ Attempts to Weaken Digital Privacy Rights
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a significant report last week analyzing the meaning of the human right to privacy in relation…
In Advance of Activating The Crime of Aggression
I had the pleasure of participating in an Interactive Panel Discussion on the crime of aggression at the United Nations yesterday on the occasion of International Justice Day (so…
Sex, Security and Foreign Policy Priorities
The Global Summit to end Sexual Violence in Conflict took place in London June 10-12, co-chaired by British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy…
Options for Accountability in Syria
The Security Council is poised today to vote on a resolution referring the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This would be the third such referral following…
Does the U.N. General Assembly have the authority to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Syria?
By all accounts, the U.N. Security Council session this morning will not result in a referral of the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Because Syria…
United States War Crimes Statute & Sri Lanka
Ryan Goodman’s post on Sri Lanka calls for the prosecution under U.S. law of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In prior posts, we’ve discussed the way in which international crimes (including…