On May 24, 2017, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released the 2016 Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death, “an updated version of the 1991 United Nations (UN) Minnesota Manual on the Effective Prevention of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, which, through widespread usage, became known as the Minnesota Protocol (the Protocol).” The original Protocol was drafted to supplement the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, “which set out international...
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 May 24, 2017, the Security Council passed a resolution that featured a new framework developed by its Counter-Terrorism Committee entitled “Comprehensive International Framework to Counter Terrorist Narratives,” which contains “recommended guidelines and good practices to effectively counter the ways that ISIL (Da’esh), Al Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities use their narratives to encourage, motivate, and recruit others to commit terrorist acts.” The Council stressed that member states and UN entities should follow the guidelines and urged “Member States...
On May 18, 2017, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling in the Jadhav Case (India v. Pakistan), finding that Pakistan must “take all measures at its disposal” to ensure that Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, an Indian national, is not executed pending a final judgment of the Court. According to the press release, the case concerns India’s claims against Pakistan “in a dispute concerning alleged violations of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 24 April 1963 with respect to an Indian national, Mr. Jadhav, sentenced to death in Pakistan.”...
On May 15, 2017, the Security Council adopted a resolution extending the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA) until November 15, 2017. The Council decided to reduce UNISFA’s authorized troop ceiling from 5,326 to 4,791 and urged the all parties to resume direct negotiations in order to agree on a final settlement of the Abyei question. The Council also noted its regret regarding “the lack of significant progress made by both parties on the benchmarks for the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM) and the unnecessary impediments imposed upon the...
On May 16, 2017, the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a report entitled “National Case Law on Freedom of Expression.” According to the press release, the report provides “an overview of a number of key judicial decisions adopted in the last four years by national supreme courts in Latin America and the Caribbean” and aims “to strengthen the capacity of national courts and to consolidate the role of judiciary’s as key players in protecting the rights of freedom of expression and access to public information...
On May 16, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the EU cannot conclude a free trade agreement with Singapore as it currently stands, without the participation of the member states. According to the press release, the European Commission submitted a request to the Court to assess whether the EU has exclusive competence allowing it to sign and conclude a trade agreement between the EU and Singapore that the parties initialed in 2013. The Court held “that the free trade agreement with Singapore cannot, in its current form, be concluded by the EU alone, because some of...
On May 10, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Chavez-Vilchez v. Raad van bestuur van de Sociale verzekeringsbank that a state may potentially be required to provide a third-country national with a right of residence if that individual has a minor child who is an EU citizen. According to the press release, the Court noted that Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning on the European Union “precludes national measures, including decisions refusing a right of residence to the family members of an EU citizen, which have the effect of depriving EU citizens of...
On May 1, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s (FSIA) expropriation exception applies only if the property at issue was “taken in violation of international law” and that a nonfrivolous-argument standard is inconsistent with the FSIA. The case concerned a claim by an American parent company and its Venezuelan subsidiary that Venezuela had unlawfully expropriated the subsidiary’s oil rigs when it nationalized them, with Venezuela arguing that its sovereign immunity barred U.S...
On April 19, 2017, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its order on Ukraine’s request for provisional measures in the case Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation), rejecting Ukraine’s request for provisional measures to halt Russia’s support for rebels in eastern Ukraine and allowing measures requiring Russia to refrain from discrimination against the Crimean Tatar community. According to...
On April 13, 2017, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2350, ending peacekeeping operations in Haiti that had been ongoing for thirteen years. The Security Council recognized the “major milestone towards stabilization achieved with the peaceful completion of the electoral process and return to constitutional order on 7 February 2017, and commend[ed] Haitian authorities, in particular the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council and the Haitian National Police (HNP), for their efforts towards ensuring elections were conducted in a credible and inclusive manner and held in a largely...