Topic 1

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has caused considerable loss of life, bodily injury, and destruction of property and infrastructure in Iraq and Syria since its emergence in 2013.[1] Indeed, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq estimates that between January and August 2014, 8,493 civilians were killed and more than 15,782 civilians were injured by ISIL and its associated groups.[2] In recent months,

On June 26, 2014, the Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted resolution 26/9, establishing an intergovernmental working group mandated to “elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.”[1]  Yet one day later, the HRC adopted resolution 26/22.

Facts

The multi-faction insurgency that has been tearing Iraq apart ever since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 has often involved the use of such crude and indiscriminate methods and means of warfare as the suicide bomb and the improvised explosive device. But in mid-2014 there were reports that some aspects of the armed conflict had risen to unexpected heights of contemporary sophistication, with the apparent use of cyberspace as a domain for hostilities.

The U.S. State Department recently announced a new policy for exports of military drones (unmanned aerial vehicles).[1] Military drones are today’s most sophisticated tools for aerial surveillance, capable of persistent and distant overflight of any terrain. While not all military drones can fire weapons, armed drones have generated controversy because of their prominent role in targeted killings of foreign and American supporters of terrorist organizations.

Humanitarian intervention as a basis for using force against another nation, or within another nation’s territory, is not without its own set of legal challenges and criticisms. Russia’s justification for using force in the Crimean peninsula, in the wake of repeated calls for intervention in Syria, highlights difficulties associated with humanitarian intervention as a basis for the use of force.

Introduction

Since 2014 China has been constructing features atop seven coral reefs in the disputed Spratly/Nansha Islands of the South China Sea by dredging sand and coral from existing coral reefs. At last count China's new features total more than 2,000 acres.[1]

Introduction

On September 29, 2014 it may have become considerably harder for civilian and military superiors to avoid criminal liability for mass sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) after a landmark conviction by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was affirmed on appeal.[1]  In the trial judgement for The Prosecutor v.

Introduction

On January 28, 2015, the High Court of Australia (Australia’s highest court) issued a decision examining the question of where to take a person who flees a country for fear of persecution and is intercepted in international waters by national authorities. The judgment arose from operation “Sovereign Borders,” Australia’s latest effort to stem the flow and resultant loss of life of people travelling without authorisation to Australia by sea.