On November 6, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (The Court) ruled (French only) in Dvoracek v. Czech Republic that the Czech Republic did not violate the European Convention of Human Rights (the Convention) by performing “protective sexological treatment in a hospital instead of the outpatient treatment” that Mr. Dvoracek had refused after multiple convictions for sex offenses against minors. According to the press release, the Court found that the Czech Republic had not violated Article 3 (inhuman or degrading treatment), since “the protective sexological treatment...
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 November 5, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) ruled (French only) in Sophie Mukarubega v. Préfet de police and Préfet de la Seine-Saint-Denis that France was not required to grant a Rwandan asylum seeker a second opportunity to be heard before deciding to return her to Rwanda. According to the press release, Rwandan national Sophie Mukarubega may be returned to Rwanda from France without a second hearing since she had received due process from a French immigration court during the first determination of the legality of her stay. The Court found that...
On November 6, 2014, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor released its report on the “Situation on Registered Vessels of Comoros, Greece and Cambodia,” concluding that there is not a reasonable basis to proceed with the investigation of the 2010 Israeli interception of a Comoros humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip. The report states that the “Prosecutor has concluded that the information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed on board the Comorian-registered vessel (the Mavi Marmara) during the...
On November 6, 2014, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School released a legal memorandum, “War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in Eastern Myanmar,” which states that at the close of a four-year investigation on the conduct of the Myanmar military during an offensive to clear and forcibly relocate civilian populations from conflict zones in eastern Myanmar in 2005–2006, they determined that the Myanmar military committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to a press release, “[t]hrough more than 150 interviews with eyewitnesses, the Clinic documented...
On November 4, 2014, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) released a General Recommendation/General Comment on states’ obligations regarding harmful practices against women and girls. The objective “is to clarify the obligations of States parties to [the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women] and [the Convention on the Rights of the Child] by providing authoritative guidance on legislative, policy and other appropriate measures that must be taken to ensure full compliance with...
On October 30, 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Committee issued an authoritative commentary in regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), entitled, “General Comment No.35 – Article 9: Liberty and security of person.” According to a press release, the General Comment discusses states’ obligations relating to Article 9 of the ICCPR and covers a range of issues, “including the definition of arbitrary detention and the procedural safeguards necessary for avoiding unlawful and arbitrary detention, such as the 48-hour standard for promptly bringing a...
On August 25, 2014, a Tribunal established under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) dismissed all claims brought by Apotex Holdings Inc. and Apotex Inc. against the United States. According to a press release, the case concerned a prior arbitration from 2012 where Apotex argued that when the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) implemented an “Import Alert” on two Apotex facilities in Canada, the U.S. violated “obligations under NAFTA Chapter Eleven to accord Apotex and its U.S. investments national...
On November 4, 2014, the Dominican Constitutional Court (the Court) ruled (Spanish only) unconstitutional the instrument the Dominican Republic deposited with the Organization of American States in 1999 accepting the competence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). According to a news article, the Court found that “the Senate never issued a resolution to ratify the February 1999 agreement with the rights court as required by the Dominican constitution. Ten judges voted in favor of the ruling, while three judges voted against it.” The Court made its ruling “in response to a...
On November 4, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Tarakhel v. Switzerland that if Swiss authorities sent a family of asylum seekers back to Italy under the Dublin Regulation without first obtaining individual assurances of their care, Switzerland would be in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights (the Convention). According to the press release, the Court found that if Switzerland sent the family back to Italy without “sufficient assurances that . . . the applicants would be taken charge of in a manner adapted to the age of the children and that the...
On October 30, 2014, a U.K. Court of Appeal (the Court) ruled that a Libyan man can sue top U.K. officials for their complicity in his 2004 rendition from China to Libya, where he was allegedly imprisoned and tortured. In its decision, the Court held that “state immunity does not bar these proceedings” and that the respondents “are not entitled to any immunity before the courts in this jurisdiction.” Although the Court found applicable the act of state doctrine, which is used to prevent courts from inquiring into matters where another state is involved, the Court held that “the present...