On March 21, 2018, the Assembly of the African Union passed a decision at its Tenth Extraordinary Session, held from March 17–21, 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, to create the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Leaders from forty-four African states signed the agreement, although fifty-five African states had been involved in negotiations on the AfCFTA since 2015. The agreement’s aim is to “[c]reate a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments, and thus pave the way for accelerating the establishment of the Continental...
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 March 20, 2018, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that that the ne bis in idem principle, an individual’s right not be prosecuted or punished twice for the same offense, may be restricted in order to protect EU financial interests and markets. According to the press release, in Menci, a case concerning an individual’s failure to pay VAT for a year, and Garlsson Real Estate and Others, a case concerning market manipulation, the Court held that in situations like these with potential administrative and criminal penalties “there could...
On March 15, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in Naït-Liman v. Switzerland that Swiss courts were not obligated to take up a case involving a Tunisian man who alleged that he was tortured in Tunisia in 1992, and that there was no violation of Article 6 § 1 (right of access to a court) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerns a Tunisian national, Abdennacer Naït-Liman, who alleges that he was detained and tortured in Tunis on the orders the then Minister of the Interior, A.K., and was later granted political asylum in Switzerland in 1995....
On March 13, 2018, the Supreme Court of India ruled in Bar Council of India v. A.K. Balaji And Ors. that foreign attorneys may not practice law within the state on a permanent basis. The Court held that foreign attorneys and firms may only advise clients in India on matters pertaining to foreign laws on a temporary “fly in, fly out basis.” The Court defined this expression as covering only “a casual visit not amounting to ‘practice.’” Determining whether a foreign attorney was conforming to this standard “for the purpose of giving legal advice to their clients in India regarding...
On March 8, 2018, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its judgments on the verdict and sentence in the case The Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, Aimé Kilolo Musamba, Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo, Fidèle Babala Wandu and Narcisse Arido. The five accused were found guilty of offenses against the administration of justice by Trial Chamber VII in October 2016 for corruptly influencing witnesses and soliciting false testimonies in the case of The Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo before the ICC. According to the press release, the...
On March 8, 2018, eleven Asia-Pacific states (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam) signed a trade agreement titled the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a multilateral free trade agreement that updates its previous iteration as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Much of the original TPP has been kept in the CPTPP, though twenty-two provisions from the TPP were suspended or otherwise changed. The Agreement will allow for freer trade and investment access among its members and is...
On March 6, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Slowakische Republik v. Achmea BV that an arbitration clause in a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) between the Netherlands and Slovakia violated European Union law. The case concerned arbitration proceedings between Achmea, a Netherlands insurance group that initiated the proceedings, and Slovakia, which had prohibited the type of insurance services that Achmea undertook to provide in Slovakia and later argued that the arbitration clause was in violation of several provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of...
On February 26, 2018, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released its Revised Deliberation No. 5 on Deprivation of Liberty of Migrants, in which the Group discusses its “criteria for determining whether the deprivation of liberty of asylum seekers and immigrants might be arbitrary.” It provides a series of explanations regarding the various rights of migrants under international law as they concern the deprivation of liberty on matters such as the length of detention, the right to asylum, challenging detention, rights during detention, and the prohibition of non-refoulement. As...
On February 22, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in European Commission v. Poland that Poland had breached EU air quality standards and “persistently exceeded” pollutant limits set under a 2008 EU directive for the protection of human health. The press release notes that the European Commission brought the case because Poland was not in compliance with the daily and annual limit values for PM10, “a mixture of organic and non-organic substances present in the air [that] may contain toxic substances such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, dioxin...
On February 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran that U.S. victims of a foreign terrorist attack could not rely on a provision of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) to collect damages from Iran by seizing Iranian antiquities held by the University of Chicago. The case concerns a $71.5 million default judgment against Iran to victims and relatives of victims of a 1997 suicide bombing by Hamas in Jerusalem for the state’s role in supporting Hamas. Plaintiffs brought suit under §1605A of the FSIA, an exception to general immunity...