Jurisdiction

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Immunities and Compromissory Clauses: Making Sense of Enrica Lexie (Part I)

August 27, 2020

Small(ish) disputes can make for significant holdings. From Nottebohm to Lotus to AAPL v Sri Lanka, the list of relatively limited incidents prompting far-reaching judicial and arbitral pronouncements is long. We may now have to add Enrica Lexie to it. The PCA’s award of 21 May 2020, released in full earlier this month, originated in a stand-off, on 15 February 2012, between an Italian oil tanker and an Indian fishing vessel — one that had dramatic, indeed, fatal consequences for two Indian fishermen, but that, relatively speaking, was brief and discrete. And yet it resulted in proceedings spanning five years, with claims, counter-claims, and procedural objections, which have now culminated in a massive award of no less 309 pages (not even counting the individual opinions). Introduction Unlike Nottebohm or Lotus, Enrica Lexie cannot be reduced to that one, timeless pronouncement that will…

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The Netherlands’ inter-State application against Russia six years after MH 17

August 14, 2020

Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down in July 2014 over the territory of Eastern Ukraine, killing 298 persons. On 10 July 2020, almost exactly six years later, the Dutch government lodged an inter-State application against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) under Article 33 ECHR,…

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‘Victim of its commitment … You, passerby, a tear to the proclaimed virtue’: Should the epitaph of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights be prepared?

May 5, 2020

In a letter dated 21 April, the Government of Benin informed the African Union of its decision to withdraw the declaration made under Article 34(6) of the Ouagadougou Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. As the Court recalled in its first judgment, direct referral by an individual or an NGO is subject…

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Public Interest Litigation Before Domestic Courts in The Netherlands on the Basis of International Law: Article 3:305a Dutch Civil Code

March 6, 2020

In recent years, the domestic courts in The Hague (Netherlands) have produced a series of judgments on matters of global concern, adjudicated on the basis of international law. All of these judgments have immediately been heralded as “a new classic” or “the most important court decision […] in the world…

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Of Temporal Jurisdiction and Power Struggles in the ICC’s Palestine Investigation

January 22, 2020

  It’s been five years since Palestine made the much-awaited move of requesting the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes allegedly committed by Israel “in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, since June 13, 2014.” Like last month’s decision of the Prosecutor announcing her intention to open an investigation, it was made public…

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