Immunities

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Location, Location, Location: The UK Supreme Court’s Judgment in Shehabi v. Bahrain

August 7, 2026

In August 2022, I co-authored a post on the English case of Al-Masarir v. Saudi Arabia [2022] EWHC 2199, where Knowles J held that Saudi Arabia had no immunity under Section 5 of the UK State Immunity Act 1978 (‘UK SIA’) for its use of Pegasus spyware to hack the devices of Mr Al-Masarir, a human rights activist located in the UK. Four years later, the UK Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited judgment in Bahrain v. Shehabi [2026] UKSC 25, bringing an end to debates over whether States enjoy immunity under UK law for transboundary cyber espionage operations.

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Who Pays for Aggression? Ukraine’s Reparation Claims and Russian Frozen Assets

July 17, 2026

As Russia’s war against Ukraine rages, inflicting suffering on the country, its people, and economy, the Russian Central Bank (RCB) assets remain immobilised (i.e., frozen). Since December 2025, the EU, on whose territory a significant chunk of these assets has been immobilised, – €210 bn worth of assets out of approximately €290 bn  – modified the legal…

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Functional Immunity and “Covert Violent Acts”: The BGH’s Progressive Development of CIL in the Nord Stream Case

May 12, 2026

On 10 December 2025, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) delivered its order (StB 60/25, English press release available here) in the criminal case against Serhiy K., accused of participating in the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September 2022. K.'s defence raised functional immunity as a procedural bar, arguing…

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The Court That Built the Advisory Opinion It Refused to Complete: OC-30/25 on Arms Trafficking, Corporate Immunity, and the Reach of Advisory Jurisdiction

March 26, 2026

Mexico’s effort to hold the gun industry to account has now encountered an institutional setback in San José. Its request for an advisory opinion raised six questions before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). This post examines, against a more expansive account of OC-30/25 offered here, whether laws granting public or private arms-industry companies…

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Central Bank Sanctions Return to the CJEU

March 20, 2026

A Primer on the Russian Central Bank’s Legal Challenge to the Permanent Freezing of its Assets On March 3, 2026, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) announced that it has recently filed an action for annulment under Article 263 TFEU challenging Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2600 before the General Court of the EU. This regulation…

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