On March 29, 2016, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) issued a report finding that the Falkland Islands are located in Argentina’s territorial waters. According to the press release, the Commission referenced the Argentine 2009 submission and clarified that it “had already decided that it was not in a position to consider and qualify those parts of the submission that were subject to dispute and those parts that were related to the continental shelf appurtenant to Antarctica.” According to a news report, this ratifies Argentina’s submission and fixes “the limit of...
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.
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Convicts Radovan Karadžić (March 25, 2016)
On March 25, 2016 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted Radovan Karadžić, former President of the Republika Srpska and Supreme Commander of the Bosnian Serb army, of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. According to the press release, the judgment concerned crimes committed between 1992 and 1995 during the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The specific acts for which Karadžić was convicted include persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts (including forcible transfer), terror, unlawful attacks on civilians...
On March 23, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Swedish authorities must evaluate the consequences of an Iranian citizen’s conversion to Christianity before refusing his claim for asylum and removing him to Iran. According to the press release, F.G. is an Iranian citizen, who arrived in Sweden in 2009 and claimed asylum, arguing that he had been politically active in Iran in opposition to the regime and had fled the country after being summoned before the Revolutionary Court. In his application, he mentioned his conversion to Christianity, but did not rely on it as grounds...
On March 23, 2016 Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed seventy charges brought by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in the case of Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen. According to the press release, Ongwen allegedly served as commander of the Sinia Brigade of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity took place in northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005. The charges stem from a series of LRA attacks on camps of internally displaced persons (IDPs). In addition to allegations that Ongwen and his men...
On March 21, 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo of two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes. In addition to the unanimous decision by the three-judge Trial Chamber, Presiding Judge Sylvia Steiner and Judge Kuniko Ozaki both submitted separate supplemental opinions. Bemba was on trial for crimes committed in the Central African Republic between October 2002 and March 2003 when he was President of the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC) and Commander-in-Chief of its military branch. As the press release notes...
On March 17, 2016, the International Court of Justice ruled that is has jurisdiction under Article XXXI of the Pact of Bogotá to determine the exact course of the boundary between Nicaragua and Colombia in the area of the continental shelf. According to the press release, Colombia argued that since the Court decided the issues in its 2012 judgment, Nicaragua’s claim was barred by the doctrine of res judicata. The Court disagreed, noting that the parties attributed different meaning to the operative clause of the 2012 judgment, where it found “that it cannot uphold the Republic of Nicaragua...
On March 17, 2016, the International Court of Justice ruled that it had jurisdiction on the basis of Article XXXI of the Pact of Bogotá to hear claims regarding the alleged violations by Colombia of Nicaraguan rights in the maritime zones that the Court determined appertained to Nicaragua in a 2012 judgment. According to the press release, Colombia argued that the Court did not have jurisdiction under the Pact of Bogotá because Nicaragua had instituted the proceedings in November 2013, almost one year after Colombia’s notice of denunciation of the Pact. The Court disagreed, finding that...
On March 11, 2016, a WTO panel issued a report in a dispute concerning a complaint against anti-dumping and countervailing duties the U.S. had imposed on imported washing machines from Korea, ruling for the first time on the practice of zeroing in targeted dumping investigations. According to a news report, the controversy began in 2011 when a U.S. corporation complained to the U.S. Department of Commerce, arguing that imported Korean-made washing machines were sold below their fair value price, which constitutes dumping, and was made possible because the producers and exporters were...
On March 18, 2016, the European Union and Turkey reached an agreement for the return of migrants who illegally entered Greek territory to be returned to Turkey. Under the agreement, Turkey is required to “take any necessary measures to prevent new sea or land routes for illegal migration opening from Turkey to the EU” and take back all “new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greek islands as from 20 March 2016.” The deal further foresees that “[f]or every Syrian being returned to Turkey from Greek islands, another Syrian will be resettled from Turkey to the EU taking into account...
On February 29, 2016, the European Union and Canada agreed on a new approach to investment protection in the revised version of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). According to the press release, “[t]his represents a clear break from the old Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) approach and demonstrates the shared determination of the EU and Canada to replace the current ISDS system with a new dispute settlement mechanism and move towards establishing a permanent multilateral investment court.” The new agreement expressly reserves the right to regulate...