On January 28, 2015, the High Court of Australia issued a judgment in CPCF v. Minister for Immigration and Border Protection holding that the detention of 157 Tamil asylum seekers at sea was legal under Australian law. A Tamil asylum seeker, known as CPCF, brought suit alleging he had been unlawfully detained and wrongfully imprisoned after an Australian border protection vessel intercepted the Indian-flagged vessel carrying him and 156 other asylum seekers and redirected them to India. After Australia was unable to reach an agreement with India about their discharge, the...
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 February 6, 2015, the U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal issued a second judgment in Liberty and Others v. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Others, ruling that British intelligence agencies’ interception powers and intelligence sharing arrangements with the U.S. breached human rights law until last year. The Tribunal explained that “the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities pursuant to Prism and/...
To meet its obligations under the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, the United States is set to restart the destruction of its chemical weapons in March. According to the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant in Colorado, a facility built to destroy chemical weapons, there are “2611 tons of mustard agent in artillery projectiles and mortar rounds stored at the U.S Army Pueblo Chemical Depot that will be safely destroyed. After the chemical weapons have been eliminated, the plant will...
On February 3, 2015, a U.S. Federal District Court judge dismissed a suit by the Marshall Islands in The Republic of the Marshall Islands v. The United States of America et al. that accused the United States of breaching “its obligations under Article VI of the [Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] Treaty by allegedly failing to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures for nuclear disarmament.” The judge ruled that the Marshall Islands lacked standing to bring the suit, the case was “nonjusticiable because it involve[d] a political question,” and the injury claimed...
On January 23, 2015, the England and Wales Court of Appeal issued a judgment in BB, PP, U and Others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department upholding the appeals of Algerian nationals against deportation after the Special Immigration and Appeals Commission (SIAC) found them to be a threat to U.K. national security. The individuals had, for years, resisted deportation through protracted litigation. On several occasions, SIAC dismissed their appeals after receiving assurances from the Algerian government that the appellants’ human rights would not be violated upon their...
On February 3, 2015, the International Court of Justice (the Court) rejected mutual claims of genocide by Serbia and Croatia in its decision on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia). According to the press release, the Court ruled that although serious crimes were committed by each side against the other, establishing the actus reus of genocide, the crimes did not amount to genocide because they lacked the required intent. The Court dismissed both states’ claims, finding...
On January 30, 2015, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (the Court) issued its judgment in Prosecutor v. Popovic et al., upholding the convictions of five senior Bosnian officials for crimes perpetrated by Bosnian Serb troops in 1995. According to the press release, the Court “dismissed, unanimously or by majority, most of the Appellant’s challenges” and affirmed convictions for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Court also affirmed the sentences of three of the defendants and...
On January 29, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) declared inadmissible an application in the case of Aswat v. the United Kingdom challenging the sufficiency of the U.S. government’s assurances concerning the extradition and detention of Haroon Aswat, a British national suspected of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism in the United States. According to the press release, the Court had declared in a decision from 2013 that the extradition of Aswat, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, would be in violation of article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading...
On January 28, 2015, UN human rights experts released a statement welcoming El Salvador’s decision to pardon a woman convicted of aggravated homicide after she suffered a miscarriage. The experts noted that the decision “must mark a turning point for the authorities to review the sentences against all women jailed for pregnancy-related complications.” Noting that the country had “one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world,” the experts urged El Salvador to “comply with its international obligations and ensure access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including...
On January 27, 2015, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) began the transfer of its judicial documents to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (the Mechanism). The Mechanism was established by Security Council Resolution 1966 (2010) “to carry out a number of essential functions of the Tribunals, including the trial of fugitives who are among the most senior leaders suspected of being most responsible for crimes, after the closure of the Tribunals.” According to the press release, the ICTY’s records, which include “a complete index, as...