Much ado about …

Much too much is being made of U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House invitation to Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines.

What’s wrong with the invite?

The enemy of your enemy should be your friend. Was it not after all Duterte who called President Trump’s nemesis, former US President Barack Obama “a son of a whore” and some other choice words?  To someone who questioned Obama’s birth place (and kept at it even in the face of uncontroverted evidence) Duterte’s disparaging and vulgar remarks against Obama must have been hugely delighting. Continue reading “COURTING DUTERTE: pragmatic diplomacy or reckless abandonment?”

On 7 March 2017, Samuel Wordsworth QC, one of Russia’s lawyers appearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Ukraine v. Russian Federation, argued that Russia could not possibly be held responsible for shooting down Flight MH17 because there is no evidence (as if one would expect to find a memo to the rebels) that Russia “provided weaponry to any party with the intent or knowledge that such weaponry be used to shoot down a civilian aircraft, as would of course be required under Article 2(1).”(( International Court of Justice, CR 2017/2, in the case concerning Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation), Transcript Oral hearing, 7 March 2017, submissions by Mr. Wordsworth for Russian Federation, p. 35. Article 2(1) of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism provides: “Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out: (a) An act which constitutes an offence within the scope of and as defined in one of the treaties listed in the annex; or (b) Any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.”))

Rather rich, as arguments go.

The subtext of Wordsworth’s argument is that yes, Russia provided weapons – including the type that shot down MH17 – and yes, the rebels (or freedom-fighters or whatever denomination one affixes to them) were expected to use those weapons, but no, Russia did not authorize or specifically direct them to shoot at civilian aircraft. Continue reading “Russia argues no specific direction for the downing of Flight MH17”

Was President Trump legally justified in striking Syria over Assad’s use of chemical weapons?

In February 2014, I was invited by the Brown University International Organization to hold a seminar: Red lines and Game Changers – The Legality of Unilateral or Collective Use of Force in Syria. The topic was inspired by President Obama’s public pronouncement that any use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would cross a read line, bringing to bear a military reaction by the U.S. with or without approval from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Continue reading “Striking Syria: is there international law or is there only power?”