On April 20, 2016, the British Parliament unanimously voted to declare that the treatment of Yazidis, Christians, and other ethnic and religious minorities by ISIL (also known as ISIS, and referred to as Daesh in the motion) in northern Iraq and Syria amounted to genocide. Parliament also moved to refer the issue to the United Nations Security Council “with a view to conferring jurisdiction upon the International Criminal Court so that perpetrators can be brought to justice.” According to a news article, the United Kingdom Foreign Office instructed its ministers and parliamentarians to...
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 April 20, 2016, the Hague District Court in the Netherlands overturned a fifty billion dollar award that Russia had been ordered to pay to shareholders of the now defunct oil company Yukos in a decision from July 2014. In the original case, Yukos brought a claim against the Russian government to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) alleging Russia was liable for expropriating the former Yukos shareholders’ investments through use of tax laws and criminal punishments without providing adequate compensation. The ECT is an international agreement...
On April 20, 2016, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress did not exceed its legislative powers allowing victims of terrorism access to frozen Iranian assets in Bank Markazi v. Petersen. A group of plaintiffs brought a wrongful death action in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for acts of terrorism sponsored by Iran in the 1983 bombings in Beirut, Lebanon. While the case was ongoing, Congress passed the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act in 2012. The Act includes a section allowing access to $2 billion of frozen Iranian funds kept in a New...
On April 19, 2016, the Russian Constitutional Court issued a ruling rejecting the implementation of Anchugov and Gladkov v. Russia, a decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) from July 2013. The ECtHR ruled in Anchugov and Gladkov that the absolute ban on the voting rights of Russian prisoners was in violation of Article 3 of Protocol No.1 (right to free elections) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Two convicted Russian prisoners brought the case to the ECtHR, complaining they were barred from voting in a number of elections. The Russian...
On April 08, 2016, the Human Rights Advisory Panel released its opinion in N.M. and Others v. UNMIK, where they found that the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is responsible for violations of human rights connected with lead poisoning in Roma camps following the 1999 conflict in Kosovo. According to the press release, members of the Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian community in Kosovo claimed in their complaints that UNMIK violated their human rights by placing them in IDP camps in lands known to be highly contaminated and failing to relocate them to a...
On April 5, 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) dismissed without prejudice its case against current Kenyan Deputy President, William Samoei Ruto, and his co-accused, Joshua Arap Sang, a former radio journalist. According to the press release, the two were charged with three counts of crimes against humanity for murder, forcible deportation or transfer, and persecution. According to a news report, the charges arose in connection with violence that erupted following the contested 2007 elections in Kenya. Supporters of Ruto clashed with those of current Kenyan President, Uhuru...
On March 31, 2016, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted (only available in French) Vojislav Šešelj, former Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia and current head of the Serbian Radical Party. According to the press release, Šešelj faced nine counts, including three counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes. He was accused of recruiting and arming Serb paramilitary forces who between 1991 and 1993 took part in atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia. According to a news report, the prosecution alleged that Šešelj incited...
On April 5, 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled (judgment not available in English) that the execution of a European arrest warrant must be postponed if the conditions of detention in the member state that issued the warrant pose a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. According to the press release, the case concerned warrants from Hungary and Romania respectively, which called for the return to the countries of two men who had been located in Germany. The local court in Germany deciding on the execution of the warrants expressed concern that the men might be...
On March 30, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Armani Da Silva v. the United Kingdom that the U.K. criminal justice and prosecutorial systems had not undermined the investigation into the fatal shooting in the London underground. According to the press release, Charles de Menezes was shot by two London Metropolitan police officers in 2005, who mistakenly believed him to be involved in the July 7 bombings in 2005. While no charges were brought against the individual officers, the police authority was found guilty for “failings in the operation’s planning and...
On March 29, 2016, the European Court of human Rights ruled in Bédat v. Switzerland that the imposition of a fine on a journalist for publishing documents covered by investigative secrecy in a criminal case is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. According to the press release, Arnaud Bédat, a Swiss citizen and professional journalist, published an article concerning the live criminal proceedings against a man who had run his car into a large group of pedestrians before throwing himself off a bridge. In the article, Bédat described the events and summarized the...