Topic 1

Introduction 

On February 27, 2019, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in Jam v. International Finance Corp.,[1] a case of critical importance for international organizations. The question presented in Jam was whether U.S. law affords international organizations absolute immunity from suit in the United States, or whether international organizations instead are entitled to only the more limited or "restrictive" immunity that applies to foreign sovereigns under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

In Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965,[1] the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its Advisory Opinion on the two questions posed in the UN General Assembly's request.[2] First, had Mauritius' decolonization been completed when it gained independence in 1968, after  the excision of the Chagos Archipelago?

In October 2018, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization in charge of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing regulations,[1] announced that it would issue guidelines on virtual asset by June 2019.[2] A virtual asset is a digital representation of value that can be traded, transferred, or used for payment or investment purposes, which does not have the status of legal tender in any jurisdiction.

Third-party litigation funding (TPF) is a rapidly expanding industry composed of speculative investors who finance legal claims in exchange for influence over case management and a contingency in the recovery.[1] The potentially high damage awards (recently averaging $500 million per dispute) characteristic of investor-state arbitration (ISDS) under the bilateral investment treaty (BIT) regime[2] have made it a new and highly attractive market for TPF.

On August 2, 2018, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Secretariat released its "Proposals for Amendments of the ICSID Rules" (Proposals).[1]

This Insight analyzes the immunity of Judge Aydin Sefa Akay, a Turkish citizen and a former judge of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, who was a judge at the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism) since July 25, 2016, assigned to the case of Prosecutor v. Ngirabatware, until June 2018.[1] The Mechanism was created to perform residual functions of the now terminated International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Introduction