On December 3, 2013, Transparency International released its 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks countries and territories based on the perceived level of corruption of their public sectors. Each country or territory is given a numeric score ranging from zero to one hundred, where zero means a country is perceived as highly corrupt and one hundred means a country is perceived as very clean. The 2013 Index includes 177 countries and territories. Afghanistan, North Korea, and Somalia were ranked the most corrupt, while Finland, New Zealand, and Denmark were ranked the least. This...
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 22, 2013, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Tribunal), according to the press release, “ordered that the vessel Arctic Sunrise and all persons detained in connection with the dispute be released and allowed to leave the territory and maritime areas under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation upon the posting of a bond in the amount of 3.6 million euros.” On October 21, 2013, the Netherlands submitted a request to the Tribunal for the prescription of provisional measures under article 290 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in...
On November 18, 2013, the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII, condemned all acts of piracy committed at sea off the coast of Somalia and called upon Somali authorities “to pass a complete set of anti-piracy laws without delay.” The Security Council urged States, working with the relevant international organizations, to adopt legislation to facilitate prosecution of suspected pirates. The resolution recognized that “on-going instability in Somalia contributes to the problem of piracy and armed robbery at sea off the coast of Somalia, while piracy, in turn, exacerbates...
On November 13, 2013, Saudi Arabia officially rejected a seat on the United Nations Security Council, following its October 18, 2013 announcement that it would do so. According to a news story, now that the seat remains vacant, the Group of Asia Pacific States, a bloc of General Assembly members, “must now choose among themselves at least one replacement candidate.” If more than one state is interested in the seat, a special election may be held. The decision by Saudi Arabia to reject the seat is “widely seen as part of a broader display of the country’s anger at the United States over...
On November 12, 2013, acting under Chapter VII, the Security Council issued Resolution 2123 in which it reaffirmed its support for the Peace Agreement and Dayton Paris Agreement on implementing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 10 November 1995. The Security Council reminded the parties that pursuant to the Agreement, “they have committed themselves to cooperate fully with all entities involved in the implementation of this peace settlement.” The Security Council welcomed NATO’s continued presence, and the European Union’s “intention to maintain an EU military operation (EUFOR...
On November 22, 2013, the International Court of Justice delivered an order on Costa Rica’s request for the indication of new provisional measures in the Case Concerning Certain Activities carried out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), which has been joined with the Case Concerning Construction of a Road in Costa Rica along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica). In November 2010, Costa Rica instituted proceedings against Nicaragua due to “the incursion into, occupation of and use by Nicaragua’s army of Costa Rican territory”, as well as for...
On November 12, 2013, the United Nations General Assembly elected fourteen countries to serve on the United Nations Human Rights Council, including Algeria, China, Cuba, France Maldives, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Viet Nam, Russia, and the United Kingdom. According to the news story, these countries will serve for a term of three years beginning on January 1, 2014, and are not eligible for immediate re-election after serving two consecutive terms. The Council is composed of forty-seven Member States and is “responsible...
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed deep concern over a recent ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic which upheld a 2010 constitutional amendment excluding the Dominican-born children of undocumented Haitian migrants from Dominican citizenship. According to a news report, the Constitutional Court additionally ordered retroactive application of the amendment, instructing authorities to commence an audit of all birth records dating back to June 1929 so as to determine who, under the amendment, is not entitled to Dominican citizenship. According to...
The Grand Chamber of the European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in the case of Bundesrepublik Deutschland v. Kaveh Puid that, according to the press release, “[w]here a Member State may not transfer an asylum seeker to the State competent to examine his application because of a risk of infringement of his fundamental rights in the latter, the Member State is required to identify another Member State as responsible for the examination.” The ECJ further found that “a finding that it is impossible to transfer an asylum seeker to the Member State initially identified as...
In a pair of reports issued this month, entitled Afghanistan: Survey of Commercial Cannabis Cultivation and Production 2012 and Afghan Opium Survey 2013, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Counter-Narcotics found drug cultivation to be on the rise in Afghanistan. Regarding cannabis production, according to the news story, “while the total area of Afghan farmland used for cannabis cultivation fell by seventeen percent in 2012, there was still an eight percent rise in overall production of cannabis compared to 2011.” Regarding opiate production, also according...