The Red Velvet Lawyer

First Inter-State Communications Ever to be Submitted to a United Nations Treaty Body On August 29, 2019, The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued the following press release : Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination closes ninety-ninth session, adopts decisions on inter-State communications by Qatar against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 29 August 2019  * * * The Committee had continued to deal with inter-State communications submitted by Qatar on 8 March 2018 against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the inter-State communication submitted on 23 April 2018 by the State of Palestine against Israel. Those were the first inter-State communications ever to be submitted to a United Nations treaty body, stressed Ms. Izsák-Ndiaye. The Committee had decided that it had jurisdiction on the communications submitted by Qatar and had declared them adm...

Filing the TM30 and TM28 Forms; Reporting Week-end Travel So, after spending the summer reading about Ecuador, I had decided to continue to explore Thailand as a retirement destination. Ecuador looks perfectly fine, but I am not ready to leave Asia. Even so, I may need to explore other destinations. Glad I have a year to figure it out. In the past few months, Thai Immigration has begun strictly enforcing a 1970s-era law allowing them to closely track the movement of "foreigners." The law was passed at a time when Thailand saw an influx of 600,000 refugees. One news article explained: When the 1979 law was enacted, Thailand had well under 2 million tourist arrivals annually, but was experiencing major influxes of refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. This followed the fall of Indochina to communist forces in mid-1975, and the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam at the end of 1978. Today, immigration control is a much changed proposition. Forecasts for leg...

High-Quality Scholarship  about Qatar In May 2019, Nova Science Publishers published Qatar: Political, Economic, and Social Issues (Haitham M. Alkhateeb ed.).  The book covers political, economic, and social issues as the name suggests. Chapters 2 to 6 feature my analysis of the Qatari response to the blockade by four neighboring countries - Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt. The book is available from Amazon in hard copy and from libraries in digital format. The Table of Contents, set out below, shows its broad coverage. Preface Chapter 1. Qatar's Nation Brand: Facing the Regional Challenges (Nawaf Al-Tamimi, PhD, and Azzam Amin, PhD, Journalism Program, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Doha, Qatar, and others) Chapter 2. Bustards, Bullies, Billions, and the Blockade: Applying Dispute Resolution Theory to the First Nine Months of the Siege of Qatar (Paula Marie Young, College of Law, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar) Chapter 3. Po...

Tit-for-Tat Legal Strategy As noted below, Qatar brought a complaint before the World Trade Organization alleging that the UAE had violated various international trade treaties by imposing a land, sea, and air blockade on Qatar along with neighboring countries Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt beginning in June 2017. UAE then brought its own complaint .  It alleged Qatar had banned the sale of products imported from the UAE and struck UAE companies from a list of approved participants in infrastructure projects.  This past week saw developments in the second proceeding.  For the complete story from The Peninsula  Qatar , see here .  The following excerpt provides a summary of the developments.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ statement underlined that the UAE’s decision to withdraw its complaint so soon after initiating this dispute confirms that Qatar has, and continues to, uphold and comply with its obligations unde...

270,000 Page Views for The Red Velvet Lawyer Dear friends, family, and colleagues: Another milestone reached! 270,000 page views! My blogging experience started in March 2013. Like everything, success relates directly to the attention and energy invested in the project. As I blogged more frequently, built my relationship with other bloggers, got more posts shared by my FB friends, and continued to create content I hoped you would like, page views grew exponentially. Here is a summary of my experience: 5,000 page views on August 2013. 10,000 page views on November 7, 2013. 15,000 page views on November 27, 2013. 20,000 page views on December 9, 2013. 25,000 page views on January 1, 2014. 50,00 page views on July 17, 2014. Obviously, I am a very long way from getting the million hits a day that top bloggers see (and I don't expect that kind of attention), but I am very grateful for this opportunity for growth, connection, voice, and influence. Thanks for supporting The...

Confirms Russian Interference with 2016 US Election and Likely Criminal Activities of Trump, including Obstruction of Justice Today, I started reading the Mueller Report, entitled "Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election." You can get your own pdf copy of this document here .  If you prefer a book format to a pdf, you will find it here .  If you prefer an audio format, you will find it here , here , or here .  Yes, it is long, but join me in this important act of reading this historic report. 

Making Sure Only Financially Secure Expats Retire in Thailand? In a recent news paper article , Thai officials announced new rules governing health insurance for expats staying for extended periods of time, including retirees. Health insurance has been made mandatory for foreigners aged 50 years and above seeking long-term stay in Thailand. The insurance policy must offer up to Bt40,000 coverage for outpatient treatment and up to Bt400,000 for inpatient treatment.  This is one of the measures the government has introduced to ease the financial burden placed on state hospitals by foreigners, many of whom have not paid for treatment.  “The Cabinet has already approved the new rule,” Health Service Support Department director-general Nattawuth Prasert-siripong revealed yesterday.   According to Nattawuth, the new rule applies to both new applicants for the non-immigrant visa (O-A), which offers a stay of up to one year, and those wishing to ren...