On February 24, 2016, the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued the panel’s report on India’s domestic content requirements for solar products, finding they violated India’s national treatment obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs). According to a news report, the U.S. initiated the proceedings at the WTO in 2013, arguing that an Indian law from 2011 which requires certain cells be produced domestically violated WTO rules by discriminating against imports. The Panel agreed with the U.S. argument...
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 29, 2016, Argentina reached an agreement with several U.S. hedge funds, settling a fifteen year legal struggle arising from the country’s financial collapse in 2001 when it defaulted on $100 billion in bonds. According to a news report, the deal will now be reviewed by Argentina’s Congress, which will have to adapt domestic laws before it can be implemented. One such change will affect a 2014 law, which allows the country to pay creditors with renegotiated debt despite a New York court order expressly prohibiting such arrangements. While many creditors agreed to renegotiate...
On February 26, 2016, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution endorsing the Joint Statement of the United States and the Russian Federation on Cessation of Hostilities in Syria. According to a news report, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the agreement as “our best chance to end the brutal violence.” The resolution “demands that all parties to whom the cessation of hostilities applies . . . fulfil their commitments . . . and urges all Member States . . . to use their influence . . . to ensure fulfilment of those commitments and to support efforts to create conditions for a...
On February 24, 2016, a federal judge approved a $940 million settlement between the U.S. government and Indian tribes, resolving a claim that the government had underfunded contract costs for the management of federal services such as law enforcement and education. According to a news report, some of the underfunded contracts date back to the 1970s, when a change in policy gave tribes the opportunity to take more control over the administration of the programs. The case was first filed in 1990, and in 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the “Government must pay each Tribe’s contract...
On February 25, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled (judgment only available in French) that ordering the blacking out of a photograph depicting a torture victim had not violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. According to the press release, the case involved the lawsuit initiated by family members of I.H. against a publishing company for printing a picture of their relative showing him “wearing shackles and showing visible signs of ill-treatment,” taken when he was held captive and tortured for three weeks. The domestic litigation culminated in an order...
On February 25, 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that citizens of other member states may be denied certain social benefits during their first three months of residence outside their home state. According to the press release, the case involved a Spanish family, who had moved to Germany in 2012. While the mother had been able to find work soon thereafter, and had been compulsorily affiliated to German social security, the father who arrived a few weeks later was denied subsistence benefits for him and the son traveling with him. Authorities cited the German Social...
On February 23, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the impossibility for a partner in a same-sex relationship to obtain a residency permit in Croatia violates the European Convention on Human Rights. According to the press release, the case concerned Danka Pajić, a national from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who had been discriminated against because of her sexual orientation when applying for a residency permit in Croatia, where her partner lived. Pajić’s lawsuits in Croatia proved unsuccessful, as the Croatian courts ruled that “given the limited legal effects of a same-sex...
On February 23, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled (judgment only available in French) that that the CIA’s abduction and extrajudicial transfer to Egypt of imam Abu Omar violated the European Convention on Human Rights. According to the press release, the case concerned the extrajudicial transfer of Egyptian imam Abu Omar, from Italy to Egypt, effected by CIA agents with the cooperation of Italian authorities. Omar, who had been under investigation for ties to radical Islamist groups in Italy, was detained in secrecy for several months and stated he was interrogated and...
On February 23, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) held that Russia is responsible for the unlawful detention of a criminal suspect under inhuman conditions in Transdniestria. According to the press release, Boris Mozer, a Moldovan national, was living in the Moldovan Republic of Transdniestria (MRT), an unrecognized separatist entity that split from Moldova in 1990, when he was arrested on fraud charges by MRT authorities. After Mozer was forced to sign various confessions, the MRT court sentenced him to prison, a sentence the Supreme Court of the Republic of Moldova quashed...
On February 16, 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen the cooperation between the institutions. According to the press release, the memorandum sets out the terms of the cooperation, focusing on “assistance by exchanging knowledge, experience and expertise inherent to the conduct of their respective mandates, subject to observance of their respective applicable legal regimes.” The two courts will “maintain contact with each other, including through the exchange of visits, the cooperation...