State Responsibility

Page 1 of 24

Filter category

Feature post image

Cossacks, Pussy Riot, and the Attribution of Conduct: A Comment on Verzilov v. Russia

September 14, 2023

On 29 August, a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in Verzilov and others v. Russia (no. 25276/15). This is the second case before the Court to concern the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot, after Mariya Alekhina and Others v. Russia (no. 38004/12). Verzilov concerned an incident during the Sochi Olympics, when Pussy Riot members attempted to perform one of their songs (‘Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland’) behind a poster promoting the Olympics, but were prevented from doing so and assaulted verbally and physically, including through the use of corded whips, by several Cossack troopers. Here’s a video of the incident: In Verzilov, the Court (unsurprisingly) found violations of Articles 3 (bodily integrity) and 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention. There is some interesting, but not terribly novel or controversial, analysis here, for example as to the ‘minimum of severity’ threshold of Article 3 (which the Court finds has been crossed – paras. 71-74, and later finds to have…

Read more

Sanctions Imposed on Private Investors by the US and the UK in the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict: Justifiable as Countermeasures in the Law of International Responsibility?

August 9, 2023

Scenario and Problems The conflict between Russia and Ukraine continued to elicit international reactions from States beyond the pair at the epicentre of concern. Just a few months ago, the Secretary of State of the United States issued a press statement, announcing sanctions on USM Holdings owned by the Russian…

Read more

A Few Reflections on State Responsibility or Liability for Environmental Harm

March 8, 2023

A lot has been written on the subject of State responsibility / liability for environmental harm. However, in the recent years, the debate has not been as robust as immediately after the rendering of the Judgment of the International Court of Justice in Certain Activities Carried Out By Nicaragua In the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua) Compensation…

Read more

Skies, Spies, and Scientific Surveys – The Legal Aspects of Chinese Unmanned Balloon Flight Over American Territory

March 6, 2023

Earlier this month, the US shot down an aerial object which had been seen traversing through parts of Alaska, Idaho, and Missouri. The Biden Administration claims that the object was an unmanned high-altitude surveillance balloon deployed by the PRC as ‘part of a larger Chinese surveillance-balloon program’. The PRC’s…

Read more

There wasn’t before, and now there even more definitely isn’t, any legal barrier to providing cross-border humanitarian assistance in northwest Syria

February 13, 2023

For three long days following last week’s earthquake in Southern Türkiye, thousands of people in northwest Syria lay trapped under rubble, with no help from the UN. The road through Türkiye to the border crossing between southern Türkiye and northwest Syria, Bab al-Hawa, was damaged. Although, to quote the International Crisis Group’s Syria Analyst Dareen Khalifa,…

Read more
  • Page 1 of 24
  • Last