On October 18, 2017, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in Reyes v. Al-Malki and another that the Employment Tribunal in the United Kingdom had jurisdiction to hear claims of Ms. Reyes, a Filipino domestic servant, against her employer Mr. Al-Maliki, a member of the diplomatic staff of the Saudi Arabian embassy in London, under the exception to diplomatic immunity contained in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Reyes had brought a claim arguing that she was the victim of trafficking and a Court of Appeal had determined that the Employment Tribunal lacked jurisdiction due to...
International Law in Brief
International Law in Brief (ILIB) is a forum that provides updates on current developments in international law from the editors of ASIL's International Legal Materials.
On October 18, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Ypourgos Ethnikis Pedias kai Thriskevmaton v. Maria-Eleni Kalliri that a law requiring a minimum height for entry into a police school regardless of an individual’s sex may constitute unlawful discrimination against women. According to the press release, the Court found that a minimum height requirement for men and women constituted indirect sex discrimination because women were far more often at a disadvantage than the men. However, the Court stated that such a law would not be discriminatory where two...
On October 17, 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in Navalnyye v. Russia that a Russian court’s criminal conviction of Aleksey Navalnyy, an opposition leader, and his brother Oleg Navalnyy, an entrepreneur, for fraud and money laundering was arbitrary and unfair because it was based on the unforeseeable application of criminal law. The case concerned an agreement between two companies—Yves Rocher Vostok and Multidisciplinary Processing (MPK)—and Chief Subscription Agency, which was set up by a company that the applicants and their parents had acquired 2007. The...
On September 28, 2017, United Nations Environment released its report “Towards a Pollution-Free Planet,” which is meant to serve as call to action for governments, businesses, local authorities, civil society, and individuals with the aim of preventing and reducing pollution globally. The report is broken into three parts: “In Part 1 . . . the evidence on pollution is presented. Part 2 discusses ongoing responses, challenges to effective actions, and the opportunities that existing multilateral environmental agreements and the Sustainable Development Goals provide to reduce pollution. Part...
On September 23, 2017, the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) delivered its judgment in the Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary Between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean (Ghana/Côte d'Ivoire). In 2014, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire agreed to submit the dispute concerning their maritime boundary to an ITLOS Special Chamber. The disputed area includes a number of oil and gas fields, and each party advocated for different methodologies in delineating the maritime boundary between their states. The Special Chamber...
On September 21, 2017, the UN Security Resolution adopted Resolution 2379 in which it asked the UN Secretary-General to create an independent Investigative Team, led by a Special Advisor, “to support domestic efforts to hold ISIL (Da’esh) accountable by collecting, preserving, and storing evidence in Iraq of acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by the terrorist group ISIL (Da’esh) in Iraq.” The Council requested that the team work to collect evidence so that it will have “the broadest possible use before national courts, and complementing...
On September 20, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Giorgio Fidenato and Others that EU member states and the European Commission may not adopt emergency measures regarding a genetically modified product where it is not clear that the product is likely to constitute a serious health or environmental risk. The case concerns the Italian government’s request to the European Commission to implement emergency measures prohibiting the cultivation of genetically modified maize MON 810 in light of two new scientific studies on the matter. The Commission determined...
On September 12, 2017, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released a report titled “Measures Aimed at Reducing the Use of Pretrial Detention.” The press release notes that “the arbitrary and illegal use of pretrial detention is a chronic problem in the region” and “is one of the most serious and widespread problems facing member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) in regard to the respect for and guarantee of the rights of persons deprived of liberty.” The purpose of the report is to follow up on a 2013 report on pretrial detention, to analyze the gains...
On September 12, 2017, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) passed a resolution on “Human Rights and the Fight Against Impunity and Corruption.” The press release notes that the IACHR decided to issue the resolution to highlight the fight against impunity and corruption and their links to human rights, as well Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales’s expulsion of Iván Velásquez, the head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (ICIG), from the state. The IACHR states in the resolution that “the establishment of effective mechanisms to eradicate corruption...
On September 11, 2017, the International Law Commission (ILC) released its 2017 Report, which summarizes the work of the ILC at its sixty-ninth session. The ILC notes that the report “includes information concerning the organization of the session, the progress of work and the future work of the Commission on the topics given substantive consideration during the session, the texts of draft articles and commentaries adopted by the Commission during the session, any procedural recommendations of the Commission calling for a decision on the part of the General Assembly as well as other...