On January 24, 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled (available in French) in Knox v. Italy that Italy had violated the human rights of Amanda Knox, an American who had been studying in Italy in 2007 when her roommate was killed, in handling the proceedings that led to her conviction for malicious accusation. The case concerns the circumstances surrounding Knox’s accusation that a pub manager killed her roommate while she was being interrogated, after which he was found to be innocent and she was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for making a malicious accusation. As...
International Law in Brief
International Law in Brief (ILIB) is forum that provides updates on current developments in international law from the editors of ASIL's International Legal Materials.
On January 23, 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in M.A, S.A. and A.Z v International Protection Appeals Tribunal and Others that an EU member state that has submitted its intention to withdraw from the EU must still accept asylum applicants due to its obligations under the Dublin III Regulation until withdrawal is final. The case concerns a family that lived in the U.K. and then moved to Ireland after their U.K. visas expired, where they applied for asylum. Ireland sought to return the family to the U.K., as applicants may be sent back to the first EU country...
On January 18, 2019, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) released a compendium of state and public comments on proposed amendments to ICSID’s procedural rules. The compendium includes all comments sent by states and public stakeholders on the proposed amendments prior to January 15, 2019, and they address the proposals made in the working paper ICSID released on August 3, 2018. The aim of the proposed amendments is “to further modernize, simplify, and streamline the ICSID rules for arbitration, conciliation, mediation and fact-finding,” and they address...
On January 16, 2019, the UN Security Council passed a resolution in which it created a Special Political Mission, the United Nations Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA), to support the ceasefire agreement between the Yemeni government and the Houthi militia reached in Sweden in December 2018 regarding the city and port of Hodeidah and the ports of Salif and Ras Issa. The Council gave UNMHA an initial mandate of six months and determined that it “will lead and support the Redeployment Coordination Commission tasked with overseeing the ceasefire, redeployment of forces and mine...
On January 15, 2019, the Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) acquitted Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé of all charges of crimes against humanity allegedly committed in the context of post-electoral violence in Côte d'Ivoire in 2010 and 2011. The two were accused of four charges of crimes against humanity: murder, rape, other inhumane acts, and persecution. The majority found that the Prosecutor had not proven several elements of the crimes charged, namely a “common plan” meant to keep Gbagbo in power, including crimes against civilians “pursuant to or in...
On January 15, 2019, the U.K. House of Commons voted by a large margin to reject Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal setting out the terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Members of Parliament voted 432 to 202 against the plan, resulting in the largest defeat for a sitting government in British history. Under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the House of Commons is required to approve of a negotiated withdrawal agreement between the U.K. and EU before it can be implemented. Currently the U.K. is still planning to leave the EU by the March 29, 2019, deadline that was triggered...
On December 21, 2018, the UN Security Council passed a resolution that welcomed the meeting between the Yemeni government and the Houthis convened by the Special Envoy in Stockholm from December 6–13, 2018, and endorsed “the agreements reached by the parties on the city and governorate of Hodeidah and the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa; an executive mechanism on activating the prisoner exchange agreement; and a statement of understanding on Taiz, as set out in the Stockholm Agreement.” The Council called upon the parties to implement the Stockholm Agreement and authorized the...
On December 20, 2018, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN Human Rights Office jointly released a report titled, “Desperate and Dangerous: Report on the human rights situation of migrants and refugees in Libya,” which details severe human rights violations faced by migrants and refugees within Libya as well as in attempting to make the Mediterranean Sea crossing on the northern coast. The report documents abuses faced by migrants and refugees as soon as they enter Libya, including “unlawful killings, torture and other ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and unlawful...
On December 19, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Molla Sali v. Greece that applying Sharia law to an inheritance dispute against the wishes of the testator violated the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned the will of a Muslim Greek national, who had bequeathed his entire estate to his wife in a will drawn in accordance with Greek civil law, but the courts found the will void because Sharia law applies to those of Muslim faith in Greece. This caused the wife to be deprived of three-quarters of her inheritance and she argued that she had suffered...
On December 17, 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into law a bill that reinstates the Supreme Court judges who were removed from office under a prior law that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ordered be halted while the case of the European Commission against Poland is decided by the Court. The case concerns domestic Polish legislation that lowered the retirement age for Supreme Court Justices to 65 and gives the Polish president discretion in extending the judges’ service, resulting in a forced early retirement of 27 of the 72 judges, which the European...