Jurisdiction

Page 2 of 25

Filter category

Feature post image

Ukraine Files ICJ Claim against Russia

Earlier today President Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine has filed an application against Russia before the International Court of Justice: Ukraine has submitted its application against Russia to the ICJ. Russia must be held accountable for manipulating the notion of genocide to justify aggression. We request an urgent decision ordering Russia to cease military activity now and expect trials to start next week. — Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 27, 2022 This is apparently a separate case to the one pending under the Terrorism Financing Convention and the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The basic problem here (compliance issues notwithstanding) is the jurisdictional basis. Russia does not have an Article 36(2) declaration accepting the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction. There is no treaty vesting the Court with jurisdiction over aggression or the breach of the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4) of the Charter. So what exactly is the jurisdictional basis here? The application isn’t available yet publicly.

Read more

The Principle of Legality in the ICC’s Appeals Judgment on Abd-Al-Rahman’s Jurisdictional Challenge: A Follow-up on Merits and Shortcomings

The recent judgment of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC, the Court) in the case of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (“Ali Kushayb”) has already given rise to heated academic commentary and critique (see here and here). As readers may recall from previous posts on this blog, this was a judgment on an…

Read more

SCOTUS Further Narrows Parent Corporate Liability under the Alien Tort Statute: Ambiguities and Evidentiary Thresholds in the June 2021 Judgment in Nestle USA Inc. v. Doe et al.

Introduction On June 17, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Nestle USA, Inc. v. Doe, __ S. Ct. __ (2021), which involved six former child slaves (“Respondents”) who had been kidnapped and forced to work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast. Nestle USA, Inc. and Cargill, Inc. (together, “Petitioners”) purchased, processed,…

Read more

The ECtHR in Georgia v. Russia – a farewell to arms? The effects of the Court’s judgment on the conflict in eastern Ukraine

On 21 January 2021, the ECtHR rendered its judgment on the merits in Georgia v. the Russian Federation (II). The complaint lodged by Georgia concerned grave human rights violations committed by Russia or non-state armed groups under its control in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and the ‘buffer zone’. In its consideration of the question as to…

Read more

A Study in Contrasting Jurisdictional Methodologies: The International Court of Justice’s February 2021 Judgments in Iran v. USA and Qatar v. UAE

The International Court of Justice issued two significant Decisions on Jurisdiction in early February: its 3 February 2021 Judgment in Iran v. United States (where the Court accepted jurisdiction over a dispute in which Iran alleged that the United States breached the 1955 Treaty of Amity between these two States) [hereafter, Iran v. US Judgment on Preliminary…

Read more