On October 7, 2015, the United Nations (UN) issued revised standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners (the Mandela Rules). According to a press statement, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the rules as a “great step forward” and highlighted “the critical importance of protecting the human rights of all persons deprived of their liberty as one of the most vulnerable groups of individuals who risk abuse and ill-treatment.” The rules include provisions relating to health care, an absolute prohibition on torture of prisoners, and strict limits to solitary confinement. They also...
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 October 7, 2015, the General Court of the European Union (Court) issued (judgment in French) its decision in Alessandro Accorinti and Others v. European Central Bank (ECB) and ruled that the ECB was not responsible for the losses of private investors resulting from the restructuring of Greece’s public debt. According to the press release, in February 2012 Greece reached agreements with both the ECB and national central banks as well as with private investors to exchange Greek debt instruments for new securities, which included a 53.5% “haircut” of the privately held securities...
On October 6, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) decided (judgement only available in French) in Belek and Velioğlu v. Turkey that a criminal conviction for a press article that did not call for violence or amount to hate speech violated Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention). According to the press release, the case concerned the convictions of two Turkish nationals for publishing statements by members of an illegal armed group dealing with, inter alia, the democratic resolution of the Kurdish question and...
On October 6, 2015, the European Court of Justice (Court) decided in Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner to strike down the Commission’s U.S. “safe harbour” provision. The case arose out of the suit brought by a European Facebook user who had complained to Irish authorities about the transfer of his data to the United States, arguing that U.S. law did not provide “adequate protection of the personal data held in its territory against the surveillance activities” by public agencies. The Irish agency had declined to take action “since any question of the adequacy of...
On October 5, 2015, The United States and eleven other Pacific Rim nations finalized their negotiations and agreed on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a regional trade agreement combining forty percent of the global economy. According to this news report, the TPP is designed to eliminate trade barriers and phase out tariffs and includes provisions establishing uniform rules on intellectual property. It also contains provisions for the mutual recognition of regulations and patent protection for pharmaceuticals. According to another report, trade ministers who negotiated the deal...
On October 1, 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Court) decided that EU member states can impose prison sentences on migrants who reenter the country illegally after having received an entry ban. The case concerned Mr. Celaj, an Albanian migrant who had been deported from Italy and prohibited from returning for a period of three years. Having moved back to Italy in violation of the order, Italian authorities sought to impose a prison sentence on the basis of applicable Italian legislation, and asked the Court to confirm its compatibility with EU Law, namely the Return...
On October 1, 2015, the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements entered into force after being signed by Mexico in 2007 and the European Union in June of this year. According to a press release by the Hague Conference on Private International Law, the Convention aims to ensure the certainty and enforceability of forum selection clauses in international commercial contracts. The Convention sets out uniform rules regarding the choice of a court by the parties, the obligation of courts not chosen to decline to hear the case, and the recognition and enforcement of judgments issued by the...
On September 22, 2015, the General Court of the European Union (Court) rejected the application of First Islamic Investment Bank to be taken off the EU’s anti-nuclear proliferation sanctions list. The Court accepted the bank’s argument that the Council had failed to provide satisfactory evidence for its claim that the bank assisted entities in circumventing the EU’s sanctions and channeled oil-related payments to Iran. However, the Court noted that the bank was owned or controlled by Mr. Zanjani, who is himself included on the EU sanctions list. Stressing that “it is necessary to freeze...
On September 30, 2015, the General Court of the European Union decided that a European citizens’ initiative (initiative) to allow the cancellation of onerous public debt could not be registered as its subject-matter does not have any basis in the European Treaties. According to the press release, the EU Treaty allows citizen to propose initiatives to the EU legislature regarding the implementation of EU treaties after submitting the initiative proposal to the Commission for registration and collecting one million signatures from at least a quarter of all EU states. The Commission can...
On September 29, 2015, a U.S. District Court (Court) dismissed Saudi Arabia as a defendant in In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, a lawsuit brought by the families of victims of the attacks. The Court rejected the plaintiff’s allegations that Saudi Arabia and several charities under the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina (SHC) had provided operational and financial support to al Qaeda in carrying out the attacks, noting that “Saudi Arabia, as a foreign state, and the SHC, as an instrumentality of Saudi Arabia, are immune from suit unless one of...