On November 17, 2014, a WTO Panel (the Panel) ruled that the U.S. Department of Commerce (USDOC) had instituted anti-dumping regulations on certain Vietnamese frozen warmwater shrimp that are inconsistent with several articles of the Anti-Dumping Agreement (the Agreement). According to the official summary, while the Panel found “Viet Nam had not established that there existed a USDOC practice amounting to a rule or norm of general and prospective application with respect to the manner in which the NME-wide entity rate is calculated,” it did find “the rate applied [by USDOC] to the Viet...
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 13, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) ruled in Ute Reindl v Bezirkshauptmannschaft Innsbruck that food retailers active only at the distribution stage are responsible for ensuring that the meat they sell is fit for consumption. According to the press release, the Court ruled that “food business operators which are active only at the distribution stage may be fined for having placed on the market a foodstuff which fails to comply with the microbiological criterion.” The Court added that if it did not require retailers to ensure the food they...
On November 13, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) ruled (French only) in Spain v. Commission that the European Commission may compel producers of lemons, mandarins, and oranges to label fruit that has been treated with “preserving agents or other chemical substances used in post-harvest processing.” According to the press release, Spain brought the case to annul the provision, arguing that “the Commission has infringed the principle of equal treatment and non-discrimination between producers” since “only citrus fruit producers are subject to the...
On November 12, 2014, a Belgium Employment Tribunal (the Tribunal) ruled (French only) that a pregnant Syrian asylum seeker and her family could stay in Belgium and receive benefits despite their entry into Europe through Spain and Spain’s agreement to take charge of the family under the Dublin III Regulation. According to a blog post, the Belgium Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (Fedasil) had “informed the applicants that they were not entitled to benefit from material aid as they had not originally requested accommodation from Fedasil and an appeal against the decision...
On November 12, 2014, the Supreme Court of the U.K. (the Court) dismissed an appeal in R (on the application of Lord Carlile of Berriew QC and others) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, upholding a prior decision to maintain a ban preventing dissident Iranian politician Maryam Rajavi from entering the U.K. to speak before Parliament. According to the press release, the ban was originally implemented in 1997 and was based on the grounds that “her presence ‘would not be conducive to the public good for reasons of foreign policy and in light of the need to take a firm...
On November 11, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) ruled in Elisabeta Dano, Florin Dano v. Jobcenter Leipzig that “economically inactive” citizens of the European Union are not required to receive economic assistance from other Member States under the Directive on Free Movement of EU Citizens (the Directive). According to the press release, Germany is not required to assist Romanian nationals who traveled to Germany and requested economic assistance reserved for those actively seeking employment. The Court stated that the Directive “seeks to prevent...
On November 6, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (The Court) ruled (French only) in Dvoracek v. Czech Republic that the Czech Republic did not violate the European Convention of Human Rights (the Convention) by performing “protective sexological treatment in a hospital instead of the outpatient treatment” that Mr. Dvoracek had refused after multiple convictions for sex offenses against minors. According to the press release, the Court found that the Czech Republic had not violated Article 3 (inhuman or degrading treatment), since “the protective sexological treatment...
On November 5, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) ruled (French only) in Sophie Mukarubega v. Préfet de police and Préfet de la Seine-Saint-Denis that France was not required to grant a Rwandan asylum seeker a second opportunity to be heard before deciding to return her to Rwanda. According to the press release, Rwandan national Sophie Mukarubega may be returned to Rwanda from France without a second hearing since she had received due process from a French immigration court during the first determination of the legality of her stay. The Court found that...
On November 6, 2014, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor released its report on the “Situation on Registered Vessels of Comoros, Greece and Cambodia,” concluding that there is not a reasonable basis to proceed with the investigation of the 2010 Israeli interception of a Comoros humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip. The report states that the “Prosecutor has concluded that the information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed on board the Comorian-registered vessel (the Mavi Marmara) during the...
On November 6, 2014, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School released a legal memorandum, “War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in Eastern Myanmar,” which states that at the close of a four-year investigation on the conduct of the Myanmar military during an offensive to clear and forcibly relocate civilian populations from conflict zones in eastern Myanmar in 2005–2006, they determined that the Myanmar military committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to a press release, “[t]hrough more than 150 interviews with eyewitnesses, the Clinic documented...