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 2015, in response to the refugee crisis in Europe, the European Union (EU) Council passed a number of decisions, which required the relocation of a specific number of refugees from Greece and Italy to the other EU member states. The EU Commission brought a case to the Court of Justice of the European Union against Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic for failing to relocate the required number of people; on April 2, 2020, in its judgment Commission v. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the Court ruled in favor of the Commission. According to a press release from the...
On March 30, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its judgment on appeal in Servotronics, Inc. v. The Boeing Co. Servotronics, the appellant in the case, sought under 28 U.S.C. 1872 to obtain testimony from employees of Boeing, the appellee, who are residents in South Carolina, for use in an arbitration taking place in the United Kingdom. The district court ruled that the arbitral panel was not a "foreign tribunal" under section 1782, a statute which provides for "assistance to foreign and international tribunals and to litigants before such tribunals." ...
On March 31, 2020, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of the plaintiff in Andreea-Marusi Dumitru v. Romania. In November 2005, Dumitru was shot and wounded by police in a Romanian train depot. In 2006, “the applicant lodged a criminal complaint for attempted murder.” Having been denied an appeal by the Bucharest District Court in 2015, Dumitru brought it to the ECHR in 2016. There she claimed violations of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, saying “the investigation … [into her injury by a police officer] had not complied with … [Romania’s]...
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published its report to Congress on how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prevents, detects, and responds to fraud and abuse in the context of aircraft registration. The FAA is permitted to issue aircraft registration to individuals and entities that meet certain requirements, e.g., U.S. citizenship or permanent residence. The GAO was asked by Congress to assess current practice under the registry for abuse and fraud. In short, the GAO found that improvement is necessary, stating that "the FAA generally relies on self-certification of...
On March 26, 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) issued a judgment of inadmissibility in Joined Cases C-558/18 and C-563/18 Miasto Łowicz and Prokurator Generalny. According to a press release issued by the Court, these two cases were referred to the CJEU by two regional courts in Łódź and in Warsaw, Poland, and are part of the ongoing saga of cases brought to the CJEU in relation to the independence of the Polish judiciary in light of several Polish legislative reforms. These two cases were adjudged to be inadmissible by the Court for three main reasons. First, the Court held that...
The Caribbean Court of Justice issued its first advisory opinion in response to a request for interpretation of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which established the Caribbean Community. According to a press release from the Court, the Court was asked by the Heads of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to give its opinion on two issues relating to freedom of movement. The request comes in the wake of two decisions by the CARICOM Heads to (a) increase the number of categories of workers entitled to seek employment in each other's countries; and (b) permit Antigua and Barbuda and St Kitts...
On March 29, 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held Ecuador “internationally responsible” for the violation of the rights of Mr. Ramón Rosendo Carranza Alarcón, who was arrested and held in pre-trial detention for approximately four years. A press release issued by the Court [in Spanish only] explains that the Court specifically held that Mr. Rosendo Carranza Alarcón’s preventive detention was arbitrary and of an unreasonable duration, as well as holding that Ecuador violated the principle of the presumption of innocence and the right to a speedy trial under the Inter-American...
The Russian Constitutional Court has approved amendments to the Russian Constitution that will allow President Vladimir Putin to serve an additional two terms as president. As reported by JURIST on March 17, 2020, the Russian Constitution's current limitation to two terms will be replaced by amendments that will "reset the term-limit clock and allow [Putin] to run again." These changes previously received parliamentary support and will now be put to a national referendum, which is scheduled for late April.
The U.S. Department of State published its 2019 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on March 11, 2020. In an accompanying statement by Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Robert A. Destro, remarked that the reports "look beyond law, policy, or statements of intent and examine what a government actually did to protect human rights during the year and to promote accountability for violence - violations and abuse." Specifically, the reports are comprised of seven sections:
Respect for the Integrity of the Person Respect for Civil Liberties Freedom to...On March 11, 2020, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon presented its eleventh annual report for the period March 1, 2019, to February 29, 2020, to the UN Secretary-General and the Government of Lebanon. The Tribunal is dedicated to the investigation of the attack which took place in February 2005 and the trial of those accused of killing 22 people (including former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri) in the attack. It was established in UN Security Council Resolution 1757 of May 30, 2007. The report highlights three "key milestones" achieved by the Tribunal in the past year: (1) progress...