On January 24, 2018, the EU's Commission on Competition announced a €997 million antitrust fine against Qualcomm for abusing its dominant market position in regard to LTE baseband chipsets—technology that enables smartphones and tablets to connect to cellular networks. Commissioner Margrethe Vestager stated that Qualcomm illegally shut out competitors from the market by paying billions of U.S. dollars to Apple “on the condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm's baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads.” The European Commission stated that Qualcomm abused its dominant...
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 January 22, 2018, the Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations sent a letter to the UN Security Council laying out its justification for its military intervention against the Kurdish-populated region of Afrin in Syria (Operation Olive Branch) as self-defense in terms of Article 51 of the UN Charter. In the letter, Turkey states that its national security of “has been under direct threat from the Syria-based terrorist organizations, among which Deash and the PKK/KCK Syria affiliate, PYD/YPG, are at the top of the list,” and that “[t]he recent increase in rocket attacks and...
On January 18, 2018, a World Trade Organization (WTO) compliance panel issued its report on “China — Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duty Measures on Broiler Products from the United States — Recourse to Article 21.5 Of The DSU by the United States,” ruling that China’s efforts to adjust tariffs on U.S. poultry in response to a 2013 WTO decision had not gone far enough and that the tariffs were still not in compliance with WTO obligations. The Panel upheld most of the U.S. claims against China, determining that China acted inconsistently with various provisions of the Anti-Dumping...
On January 10, 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an advisory opinion (only available in Spanish) that held for the first time that individuals have the right to have their legal names amended to conform with their gender identity and that couples have the right to same-sex unions under the American Convention on Human Rights. Puerto Rico initiated the case in 2016 when the government asked the Court whether it had an obligation to extend property rights to same-sex couples and allow transgender people to change their name and genders on identity documentation. The...
On December 22, 2017, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2397 increasing sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in response to the state’s latest ballistic missile test on November 28, 2017. Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council tightened sanctions to restrict all refined petroleum products, limiting the country’s imports of refined petroleum to 500,000 barrels for twelve months starting in January 2018, and caped crude oil at its current levels for the same period. The resolution also states that member states shall repatriate all...
On December 20, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Asociación Profesional Élite Taxi v. Uber Systems Spain SL that the ride-hailing electronic platform Uber must be classified as “a service in the field of transport” within the meaning of EU law. The case was initially instigated be a group of taxi drivers in Spain who argued that Uber’s activities amounted to misleading practices and acts of unfair competition, and the Court noted that in order to make that determination it had to decide whether Uber’s services should be regarded as transport services,...
On December 15, 2017, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) published its judgment in Decision on the Communication Submitted by Minority Rights Group International and SOS-Enclaves on Behalf of Said Ould Salem and Yarg Ould Salem against the Government of the Republic of Mauritania. The case concerned two brothers who were forced into slavery by a local household as children, abused, and deprived of an education for eleven years. The Committee found that under the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Mauritania had...
On December 14, 2017, the International Criminal Court Assembly of States Parties passed a resolution that adopted three amendments to Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which added to the list of war crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court and relate to the use of prohibited weapons in armed conflict. The amendments prohibit “Employing weapons, which use microbial or other biological agents, or toxins, whatever their origin or method of production”; “Employing weapons the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays”; and “Employing...
International Criminal Court Activates Jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression (December 14, 2017)
On December 14, 2017, the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) adopted a resolution that activates the Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression as of July 17, 2018. The ASP also released a report on facilitating the activation of ICC jurisdiction over the crime of aggression that discussed the history of the crime of aggression at the ICC, states parties’ positions on the matter, and procedural aspects of an activation decision. The resolution notes that jurisdiction for the crime of aggression will “enter into force for...
On December 12, 2017, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued two similar decisions in Chiragov and Others v. Armenia and Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan, holding that due to a lack of political solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the applicants should be awarded compensation as just satisfaction in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. The cases both concern applicants who were forced to flee their homes in 1992 due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: Chiragov concerned the complaints by six Azerbaijani refugees that they could not...