On December 4, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Zakharov v. Russia that the system for secret surveillance of mobile phones in Russia violated Article 8 (right to respect for private life and correspondence) of the European Convention of Human Rights (Convention). According to the press release, Roman Zakharov, a Russian national and subscriber of several mobile service providers, filed for an injunction in a Russian court, arguing that “pursuant [to a not generally accessible regulation] the mobile network operators had installed equipment which permitted 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 December 1, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court (Court) decided in OBB Personenverkehr AG v. Sachs that a California resident could not recover against the state-owned Austrian railway under the commercial activity exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Carol Sachs, a California resident, had purchased tickets for a train journey in Europe online from a travel agency based in Massachusetts. At a train station in Austria, she had taken a fall on the platform and been seriously injured. Sachs argued that “her suit falls within the Act’s commercial activity exception,...
On December 1, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) ruled (judgment only available in French) in Cengiz and Others v. Turkey that blocking users’ access to YouTube without a legal basis violated Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention). According to the press release, a Turkish criminal court had blocked access to YouTube, citing a “[l]aw regulating Internet publications and combating Internet offences” and finding that the website contained ten videos that fell under the legislation as they were “insulting to the...
On October 19, 2015, the U.K. High Court (Court) ruled that a suit brought by the Western Sahara Campaign UK (WSCUK or Campaign) against Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Secretary of State for the Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) regarding a trade agreement with Morocco should be heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). According to this statement by Leigh Day, the firm representing WSCUK, the Campaign “is an independent voluntary organisation founded in 1984 with the aim of supporting the recognition of the right of the Saharawi people of Western...
On November 30, 2015, the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland (Court) ruled that aspects of Northern Ireland’s abortion laws are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention). According to a news report, Northern Ireland permits abortions only “in cases where a woman’s life is threatened or where there is a permanent or serious risk to her well-being.” The Court found that the current laws regarding abortion violate Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the Convention, as they provide no provisions dealing with sexual abuse or incest...
On November 28, 2015, Russia imposed trade sanctions on Turkey in response to the downing of a Russian fighter jet a few days earlier. According to a news report, Russian Prime Minister Medvedev stated “that the focus of the sanctions would be on ‘introducing limits or bans’ on Turkish economic interests in Russia, in addition to a ‘limitation of the supply of products.’” The Executive Order signed by President Putin forbids extension of employment contracts for Turks working in Russia after January 1, 2016 and prohibits the sale of vacation packages for stays in Turkey as well as charter...
On November 26, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) ruled (judgment only available in French) that the non-renewal of a public employee’s contract, after she refused to remove her veil, was not a violation of the European Convention of Human Rights (Convention). According to the press release, Christiane Ebrahimian worked as a social worker in the psychiatric department of a hospital, which had declined the renewal of her contract after receiving complaints from patients about her wearing of the Muslim veil. When Ebrahimian refused to stop wearing the veil, the hospital sent...
On November 26, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) ruled in Annen v. Germany that a prohibition on the distribution of anti-abortion leaflets near a clinic violated an activist’s freedom of expression. According to the press release, Mr. Annen had been distributing leaflets in the vicinity of a day clinic that performs abortions and had alleged that the doctors were performing “unlawful abortions.” The leaflets also contained a reference to the Holocaust, as well as information for his website “babycaust.de” where he listed “abortion doctors” with their names and...
On November 12, 2015, the European Union (EU) published its proposal for investment protection and a court system under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP), which would replace the existing investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism in TTIP and all future agreements. According to the press release, the proposal incorporates all “key elements” of the Commission’s draft, and “aims at safeguarding the right to regulate and create a court-like system with an appeal mechanism based on clearly defined rules, with qualified judges and transparent...
On November 21, 2015, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the ISIL terrorist attacks and determining that terrorist groups “constitute[] a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security.” The resolution contained expressions of sympathy for victims of past attacks, condemned the “continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations of humanitarian law, as well as barbaric acts of destruction and looting of cultural heritage” and “reaffirme[d] that those responsible . . . must be held accountable.”...