The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence has issued a report relating to truth commissions and recently presented it to the Human Rights Council. According to the press release, the Special Rapporteur contends that "truth commissions have made significant contributions to transitional processes" but "face various challenges which can lead to the non-implementation of recommendations," such as "overly broad mandates, flawed choices of commissioners, and insufficient and unreliable funding streams." The Special Rapporteur...
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.
In July 2013, the Federal Reserve Board approved a final rule that will increase the minimum requirements for both the quantity and quality of capital held by banking organizations. According to the press release, the final rule "minimizes burden on smaller, less complex financial institutions" while "establish[ing] an integrated regulatory capital framework that addresses shortcomings in capital requirements, particularly for larger, internationally active banking organizations, that became apparent during the recent financial crisis." The rule will implement the Basel III regulatory...
The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has adopted a Code of Conduct for the OTP. The Code sets "minimum standards of conduct applicable to all Members of the [OTP]" as a supplement to the general standards of conduct promulgated in other ICC Codes of Conduct and Staff Regulations. The Code includes: standards of conduct such as independence, impartiality, and confidentiality; specific duties such as objective truth-seeking and disclosure; and working relations such as equal treatment, non-discrimination and non-harassment. The Code entered into...
The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) has unanimously upheld the conviction of former Liberian President Charles Taylor on eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and affirmed the fifty-year sentence imposed by the Trial Chamber. In April 2012, an SCSL Trial Chamber had found Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting crimes that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council rebel forces had committed against Sierra Leone's civilian population over a five-year period, as well as planning, with RUF Battlefield...
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that, according to the press release, "Turkish nationals do not have the right to enter the territory of an EU Member State without a visa in order to obtain services." Leyla Ecem Demirkan, a Turkish national whose application for a German visa had been denied, argued that the visa requirement violated the "standstill" clause of 1970 Additional Protocol (Protocol) to the 1963 European Economic Community-Turkey Association Agreement (Agreement). The aim of the Agreement was to, inter alia, "promote the continuous and balanced...
The United States has become the ninety-first country to sign the Arms Trade Treaty. In his remarks at the signing ceremony, Secretary Kerry stated that the treaty strengthens U.S. security and "builds global security without undermining the legitimate international trade in conventional arms which allows each country to provide for its own defense." The Treaty opened for signature on June 3, 2013, and will enter into force following ratification by fifty states. To date, four states have ratified it.
The International Court of Justice has removed from the Court's List the case brought by Ecuador against Colombia on March 31 2008, regarding a dispute concerning "Colombia's aerial spraying of toxic herbicides at locations near, at and across its border with Ecuador." According to the press release, on September 12, 2013, Ecuador notified the Court that it wished to discontinue proceedings in the case, "referring to Article 89 of the Rules of Court and to an Agreement between the Parties dated 9 September 2013 'that fully and finally resolves all of Ecuador's claims against Colombia' in...
The Second Circuit held that the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2013 decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum bars the Alien Tort Statute claims against Ford, Daimler, and IBM for allegedly aiding and abetting the apartheid regime in South Africa. The plaintiffs had claimed that defendants "sold cars and computers to the South African government, thus making the defendants, their parent companies, liable for the apartheid regime's innumerable race-based depredations and injustices, including rape, torture, and extrajudicial killings." Reasoning that "the Kiobel decision, combined with the...
The ICSID Arbitral Tribunal issued a partial ruling in the dispute between ConocoPhillips and Venezuela regarding the latter's 2007 taking of ConocoPhillips oil assets located in the country. ConocoPhillips submitted the dispute to ICSID in 2007 pursuant to Article 36 of the ICSID Convention, basing its claims on the Venezuelan Law on the Promotion and Protection of Investments and the 1991 Agreement on Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of Venezuela (BIT). ConocoPhillips claimed Venezuela's 2007 actions violated...
A tribunal convened at the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that former settlement agreements protected Chevron from paying to Ecuador a $19 billion fine for polluting the Amazon basin region. According to the press release, the tribunal, which was convened under the authority of the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty and under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Rules, "found that the Settlement and Release Agreements that the Government of Ecuador entered into with [Texaco Petroleum Company (TexPet)] in 1995 and 1998 released TexPet and its...