News

General Assembly Adopts Texts on Items Ranging from Self-Determination to Peace in South Atlantic; Supports Extension of Impunity Commission in Guatemala The General Assembly, working through its busy agenda, today adopted five resolutions and one decision on a wide range of items, including on the self-determination of French Polynesia and …

Court between A Rock and a Hard Place: Comoros Refers Israel’s Raid on Gaza Flotilla to the ICC Comoros has referred the action of Israeli troops in boarding the flotilla headed to Gaza on 31 May 2010 to the International Criminal Court. The ICC Prosecutor has announced that she is …

General Assembly, Adopting Political Text, Pledges to Address Twin Imperatives of Security, Development, in Efforts to End Conflict in Africa Declaration Reaffirms Importance of UN-African Union Partnership, Capping Two-day Event amid Calls for Africans to Take Charge of Peace Efforts Recognizing that the “indispensable” partnership between the United Nations and …

Bolivia Institutes Proceedings Against Chile Before the ICJ After a lull of almost a year and a half, the ICJ got a new case – yesterday Bolivia instituted proceedings against Chile with regard to Chille’s alleged obligation to negotiate with Bolivia a fully sovereign acess to the Pacific Ocean for …

African Union brings Sudan, rebels together for peace talks ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The African Union on Wednesday brought together for the first time for peace talks Sudan and insurgents fighting government troops in two states bordering South Sudan, in a conflict that has affected almost a million people.  Fighting …

The Law Applicable to Peacekeepers Deployed in Situations where there is No Armed Conflict Siobhán Wills  is Professor of Law at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. I have been researching the peacekeeping operation in Haiti, MINUSTAH, and in doing so coming up against a problem that I would appreciate …

What is the Meaning of “Consensus” in International Decision Making? On 28 March, the negotiators at the Final UN Diplomatic Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty failed to adopt the Arms Trade Treaty (see BBC report here) by consensus.  A few days later the Arms Trade Treaty was adopted by the …

Are the two Koreas Now at War? In recent days the tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen. On 11 March, North Korea claimed  that it had terminated the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War of the 1950s and on 30 March stated that: “From this time on, the …

What did the referendum in Malvinas leave?  1.-Did the “referendum” alter the international situation of the Malvinas  Islands?  No. The Malvinas Question continues being considered by the United Nations  (UN) as a territory subject to decolonization. For the UN, the Malvinas Question continues being a ” special and particular case ” of decolonization because it supposes a …

Argentinians dismiss ‘illegal’ Falklands referendum The claim on the islands known in Buenos Aires as the Malvinas is one of few points of general agreement in a divided country Every Tuesday, a group of Argentinian veterans of the Falklands war gather on the outskirts of Buenos Aires to cook up …

Iceland not responsible for the liabilities of its deposit insurance scheme In a landmark decision, the EFTA Court on 28 January 2013 dismissed all claims brought by the EFTA Surveillance Authority against Iceland in the Icesave case. The Authority had alleged that Iceland had breached its obligations under Directive 94/14/EC …

French Military Intervention in Mali: It’s Legal but… Why? Part II: Consent and UNSC Authorisation In the First Part of this comment we have seen that reference to article 51 of the UN Chapter in order to justify Operation Serval, is problematic. We will now discuss the two other legal …