On November 26, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) ruled (judgment only available in French) that the non-renewal of a public employee’s contract, after she refused to remove her veil, was not a violation of the European Convention of Human Rights (Convention). According to the press release, Christiane Ebrahimian worked as a social worker in the psychiatric department of a hospital, which had declined the renewal of her contract after receiving complaints from patients about her wearing of the Muslim veil. When Ebrahimian refused to stop wearing the veil, the hospital sent...
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 November 26, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) ruled in Annen v. Germany that a prohibition on the distribution of anti-abortion leaflets near a clinic violated an activist’s freedom of expression. According to the press release, Mr. Annen had been distributing leaflets in the vicinity of a day clinic that performs abortions and had alleged that the doctors were performing “unlawful abortions.” The leaflets also contained a reference to the Holocaust, as well as information for his website “babycaust.de” where he listed “abortion doctors” with their names and...
On November 12, 2015, the European Union (EU) published its proposal for investment protection and a court system under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP), which would replace the existing investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism in TTIP and all future agreements. According to the press release, the proposal incorporates all “key elements” of the Commission’s draft, and “aims at safeguarding the right to regulate and create a court-like system with an appeal mechanism based on clearly defined rules, with qualified judges and transparent...
On November 21, 2015, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the ISIL terrorist attacks and determining that terrorist groups “constitute[] a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security.” The resolution contained expressions of sympathy for victims of past attacks, condemned the “continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations of humanitarian law, as well as barbaric acts of destruction and looting of cultural heritage” and “reaffirme[d] that those responsible . . . must be held accountable.”...
On November 20, 2015, the WTO Appellate Body issued its report in United States-Measures Concerning the Importation, Marketing and Sale of Tuna and Tuna Products. According to a news report, Mexico had first initiated dispute settlement proceedings in 2009 and won on a number of claims before both the original panel and on the Appellate Body’s review of its findings. In reaction to these decisions, the U.S. changed its tuna labelling regulations but Mexico instituted review proceedings, arguing these changes were insufficient to implement the Dispute Settlement Body’s...
On November 4, 2015, an arbitral tribunal constituted under the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention published a decision it had taken earlier this year, which found in favor of a Dan Cake, a Portuguese company that had brought a claim under a Hungary – Portugal bilateral investment treaty (BIT) (not available in English), alleging that the Hungarian court’s actions during the liquidation proceedings of a subsidiary were a violation of the fair and equitable treatment provision of the BIT. When Dan Cake’s Hungarian subsidiary encountered financial...
On November 13, 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) published a decision (only available in Spanish) it had ruled on in September, finding that Peru had violated the American Convention of Human Rights (Convention) by forcefully disappearing fifteen villagers in 1991. The case concerned the Peruvian military’s arrest of fifteen people, including children, and their transport to an abandoned mine. The villagers were executed and their bodies destroyed by explosive charges that were detonated inside the mine. The Court determined that the state refused to recognize the...
On November 12, 2015, President Obama published an Executive Order terminating the sanctions against Liberia. According to this news report, the sanctions had been put in place in 2004 and “imposed asset freezes on former Liberian President Charles Taylor, people belonging to his immediate family, his close associates or officials of his former regime, those who have been involved in the unlawful depletion of Liberian resources, and entities owned or controlled by designated persons.” According to the Executive Order, the president decided to lift the sanctions because Liberia had made...
On November 11, 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Court) issued a judgment deciding the interpretation of what constitutes an “extrajudicial document.” According to the press release, the case concerned an EU Regulation which states that “[t]he proper functioning of the internal market entails the need to improve and expedite the transmission of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters for service between the Member States” and requires member states to transmit those documents “directly and by rapid means.” The Court found that “the concept of an...
On November 10, 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) ruled (judgment only available in Spanish) in Lopez Lone and others v. Honduras that the state had violated the American Convention on Human Rights (Convention) by disciplining and dismissing judges who spoke out against the coup d’état in 2009. The Court stressed that representative democracy is one of the pillars of the Convention as well as the Organization of American States and noted that the coup d’état violated international law. During this time, the judges took actions in defense of the rule of law and...