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Recent Posts

20 Oct

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The top U.N. human rights official in the Democratic Republic of Congo has left the country after the government ordered his expulsion for publishing a report accusing the police of abuses, but a U.N. spokesman said on Sunday he would return. At least 22 people, most of them...

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19 Oct

Right now, the Ebola virus is spreading across the Africa, and the ability of the most affected states – Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea – to stop and contain the virus is very much in doubt. Although only a few cases have been reported in the United States and Europe, it is clear that it will be impossible to completely...

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19 Oct

Events On Thursday, November 13, 2014, the University of Georgia School of Law and the ASIL International Legal Theory Interest Group will convene a book workshop on “International Law as Behavior,” at Tillar House, 2223 Massachusetts Ave., NW, ASIL’s headquarters in Washington, DC.  Organized by Harlan Cohen (University of Georgia School of Law), the workshop will bring together scholars working at...

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18 Oct

This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Jens discussed how to get Quirin right when Quirin was wrong. Kevin asked for sources backing the US position on self-defence against non-state actors, while Kristen gave an overview of the legal issues up for debate at the General Assembly this fall. Julian expressed doubts about the strength of Greece's legal arguments for the return of the Elgin Marbles. We...

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16 Oct

Amal Alamuddin-Clooney, Kevin's Doughty Street Chambers colleague, made news this week by visiting Greece as part of a legal team working for the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece from Britain.  This is not ordinarily global tabloid fodder, but Alamuddin-Clooney's recent marriage means she will draw media attention wherever she goes. I don't doubt her legal credentials (as well as that of her...

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16 Oct

[Oliver Windridge is a British lawyer specialising in international criminal and human rights law. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or any other organisations affiliated to the author.] Last week saw the discontinuation of alleged Bahraini torture survivor FF’s judicial review of the Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales (DPP) decision not to authorise a criminal investigation into the alleged involvement of Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the son of the King of Bahrain, in torturing persons involved in the political protests in Bahrain in April 2011. Unfortunately, since the DPP withdrew from the case just prior to the court hearing there does not appear to be a final judgement, only this 2013 directions hearing judgement which  sets out the parties' submissions. As background, FF took part in Bahraini political protests in February and March 2011 which resulted in him being allegedly badly beaten by police and held without charge. In July 2012 a dossier prepared by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) alleged that Prince Nasser was directly involved in the torture of detained prisoners linked to the same political protests FF participated in. In addition to being the son of the King of Bahrain, Prince Nasser also holds the position of Commander of the Royal Guard. The ECCHR’s dossier was handed to the British police which in turn lead the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales (CPS) to indicate in August 2012 that Prince Nasser would enjoy personal immunity under Section 20 of the State of Immunity Act 1978 since Prince Nasser was a member of the Bahraini royal household and/or functional immunity pursuant to section 1 of the same act in relation to any conduct in his role as Commander of the Royal Guard. Following a request for review of the CPS’s decision, the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism division indicated in September and October 2012 that Prince Nasser did not enjoy personal immunity under Section 20 (1) (b) of the 1978 Act as his household was independent from that of his father, the King of Bahrain. It maintained however, that Prince Nasser still enjoyed functional immunity under Section 1 of the 1978 Act based on his position as Commander of the Royal Guard of Bahrain FF sought judicial review of the CPS’s decision submitting that Section 1 of the 1978 Act does not apply to criminal proceedings. He cited in support Pinochet III and Jones v Saudi Arabia, both of which he argued supported his contention that public officials of foreign states have no functional immunity from criminal process in relation to the international crime of torture.  FF argued therefore that prosecution of Prince Nasser for torture committed in Bahrain would be possible in UK courts pursuant to the extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction under Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. In January 2013 FF was granted judicial review permission. As mentioned above, the matter was due to be heard in the High Court of England and Wales on 7 October 2014, roughly one year and 10 months after permission for judicial review was granted. However shortly before, the DPP appears to have accepted that Prince Nasser does not enjoy immunity from torture allegations and withdrew from the case.
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16 Oct

[Yanying Li is a Ph.D researcher at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and a visiting research fellow at the University of Cambridge] Recent reforms for more orderly sovereign debt restructurings have been prompted by the so-called “trial of the century” in sovereign debt restructuring— NML Capital Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina. In short, various court decisions in New York found Argentina in breach of the pari passu clause in its defaulted bonds, and prohibited Argentina from making payments to those creditors who accepted the bond exchange offer unless other creditors who rejected the exchange offer (i.e. holdout creditors), including plaintiffs in this case, were paid the same percentage of the amount due to them. The pari passu clause in question provides that the debtor’s payment obligation under that particular bond series shall rank equally with all other existing and future unsubordinated and unsecured external indebtedness. Given that Julian has already addressed the latest development in this case, my little contribution here will only focus on the issues of legal reform in the context of sovereign debt restructuring. As discussed in my earlier post, on September 9, 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled “Towards the establishment of a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes”. The modalities for the intergovernmental negotiations and the adoption of the text of the multilateral legal framework will be discussed at the General Assembly’s 69th session plenary meeting on November 14, 2014. In the meantime, the directors and staff at the International Monetary Fund did not just sit back and relax. As noted in Press Release No.14/459dated October 6, the IMF’s Executive Board approved the staff paper on “Strengthening the Contractual Framework to Address Collective Action Problems in Sovereign Debt Restructuring”. The staff paper suggests a few contractual reforms designed to tackle collective action problems so as to achieve orderly sovereign debt restructurings. These reforms include potential changes to international sovereign bond contracts, namely the pari passu clause and the collective action clause (“CAC”).
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15 Oct

For those interested in the 6th committee program at the General Assembly currently underway,  the schedule is available here.   Interesting topics are being discussed, including the Rule of Law, International Terrorism, Universal Jurisdiction, finalizing a draft UNCITRAL treaty on transparency in treaty based Investor-State disputes, and an update on the Responsibility of International Organizations.  The ILC's report will be...

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14 Oct

I will be participating next week in what should be an excellent event at George Mason University on the ICC and Palestine. The other participants are all excellent -- David Luban, Meg DeGuzman, George Bisharat, and the organizer, Noura Erakat. Here is the flyer: I hope at least some Opinio Juris readers will be able to attend and hear my dire prognostications in person. (If you do,...

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13 Oct

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Two people were killed in fighting in the capital of Central African Republic and six peacekeepers from Burundi and Cameroon were wounded in an ambush, a spokeswoman for the United Nations mission in the country said on Saturday. Middle East and Northern Africa Kurdish defenders held off Islamic State...

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12 Oct

A few years ago, John Brennan articulated the US position concerning self-defence against non-state actors: Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qa’ida, the United States takes the legal position that —in accordance with international law—we have the authority to take action against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces without doing a separate self-defense analysis each time. As the quote makes...

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