Things are not going well for Ukraine these days as Russia has managed to solidify its control over Crimea and is continuing support for breakaway regions in Eastern Ukraine. It is very hard to justify the legality of Russia’s actions, so it is not surprising that Ukraine is looking for any and all international fora to sue Russia.

As usual, the great challenge is to find an international court with jurisdiction. Ukraine has added a bunch of new cases to the already crowded Russia docket of the European Court of Human Rights. But I had been wondering how Ukraine planned to bring Russia to other courts like the International Court of Justice since Russia has not accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of that court.

Well, according to this report, it looks like Russia has accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of ICJ for disputes under the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.   Article 24(1) of the Convention states:

Any dispute between two or more States Parties concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention which cannot be settled through negotiation within a reasonable time shall, at the request of one of them, be submitted to arbitration. If, within six months from the date of the request for arbitration, the parties are unable to agree on the organization of the arbitration, any one of those parties may refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice, by application, in conformity with the Statute of the Court.

Although Russia could have avoided jurisdiction under paragraph 2 (as the United States did), Russia did not do so. So Russia could face an ICJ case, which I imagine it will ignore.  But I am not sure it could brazenly claim the ICJ lacked jurisdiction, so it will be interesting to see whether Russia decides to litigate (and maybe even file counterclaims)?

I’m sure most of us will go see the live-action movie version of PADDINGTON, which recently hit the big screen. And we will do so, of course, because we are interested in what Paddington’s residence status says about the UK’s harsh immigration laws. Fortunately, Colin Yeo has prepared a nice primer for us at the Free Movement blog, run by the excellent Garden Court Chambers. Here’s a snippet:

Paddington stows away and deliberately avoids the immigration authorities on arrival. He is in formal legal terms an illegal entrant and as such commits a criminal offence under section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971. It is an offence punishable by up to six months in prison. If or when detected by the authorities it is more likely he would simply be removed back to Peru than that he would be prosecuted, though. To avoid that fate he would need to make out a legal basis to stay.

Incidentally, for offering a home to Paddington — or harbouring him, as the Home Office would have it — Mr and Mrs Brown could potentially face prosecution under section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971, entitled “Assisting unlawful immigration to member State”.

Yeo goes on to explain why Paddington will have a difficult time justifying his illegal entry into the UK — and will probably end up in a poorly-run private detention centre. (Do I hear sequel? Perhaps it could be entitled PADDINGTON MAKES A NEW FRIEND.)

It could be worse, though. Paddington could’ve tried to sneak into Australia. If he had, he’d likely be sent to the ironically-named Christmas Island, Oz’s very own prison camp.

[Giacomo Pailli is a PhD in comparative law at University of Florence, Italy]

Many readers will recall the judgment of the International Court of Justice in Germany v. Italy, where the Court upheld Germany’s claim of immunity under international law vis-a-vis Italy’s exercise of jurisdiction over certain Nazi crimes that had occurred during World War II. The decision received a lot of commentary, e.g., by Ingrid Wuerth on this blog and by Paul Stephan on Lawfare. Following the decision, the Italian Corte di cassazione, which previously found that immunity could not lie when crimes of such gravity were concerned, had no choice but to bend its head (see, e.g., its decision no. 32139 of 2012, also here, and no. 4284 of 2013). The story seemed settled and closed.

On October 22, 2014, however, the Italian Corte costituzionale wrote a new and surprising chapter with its decision no. 238. Upon referral by the Tribunale di Firenze, and faced again with claims against Germany by victims of Nazi’s crimes committed during WWII, the Constitutional court found that the ICJ holding in Germany v. Italy is contrary to fundamental principles of the Italian Constitution (namely, articles 2 and 24) in that it deprives victims of crimes against humanity of the possibility, altogether, to seek justice and redress for the torts suffered. Thus, the Constitutional court found that no effect to the ICJ decision can be given in the Italian legal system; Italian jurisdiction continues to hold and the Tribunale is free to proceed with hearing the merits of the dispute.

Technically, the Constitutional court applied a long established but (to my limited knowledge) seldom used constitutional doctrine.  It declared that the two Italian laws in question, one ratifying the UN Convention on States’ Immunity of 2004 (art. 3 of the law 14 January 2013, no. 5) and the other the UN Charter (art. 1 of the law 17 August 1957, no. 848) are partially unconstitutional to the extent they would require Italy to abide by the decision of the ICJ, which would force Italy to deny its jurisdiction vis-à-vis crimes against humanity.

I should stress that, as far as the law no. 848 of 1957 is concerned, the effect of this most recent decision is expressly and surgically limited to prevent the ICJ’s holding of 3 February 2012 from having effects within the Italian legal system; otherwise, the law is left completely untouched.

[Başak Çalı is Associate Professor of International Law at Koç University Law School, Turkey, and a member of the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law]

We, in the ‘from Reykjavik to Vladivostok’ Europe, have grown accustomed to being proud of the European Human Rights System in the last forty or so years. We teach courses on European Human Rights Law that distill over ten thousand European Court of Human Rights judgments. We start our lectures on European Human Rights Law by pointing out that Europe, despite all its flaws, has the most effective regional system. We note that the European Court of Human Rights has been cited by the US Supreme Court.  We celebrate how the effective rights doctrine has recognised and empowered Irish catholic women trying to divorce, Cypriot gay men wishing to walk safely on the streets, Kurdish mothers looking for their disappeared sons, Bulgarian rape victims, Azeri journalists, British children wrongly placed in care and more, so many more. We underline the importance of the guidance that the European Court of Human Rights has provided to domestic judges, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and legislators on how to take into account human rights when doing their respective jobs. We also salute the fact that the European Human Rights System has brought those us of who live between Reykjavik and Vladivostok together in a recognition of our common humanity, its frailty and our desire for a common dialogue on human rights regardless of our jurisdictional differences. That is why a judge in Diyarbakır, Turkey has given some thought to Mr. McCann and the British military operation in Gibraltar in 1988. Why a judge in Scotland has asked herself what does the case of Salduz mean for her to respect fair trial rights.  We also spend long hours in classrooms, courtrooms and parliaments discussing whether the European Court of Human Rights got the ‘margin of appreciation’ right this time.

Now all that celebration and all the hard and painstakingly incremental gains of the European Human Rights System, a system based on solidarity to reach the common purpose of the promotion of human rights of all, is under serious threat. Unlike the debates that have ensued in the last ten years, the danger is not the Court’s famed gigantic case-load (as has been captured in the cliche of the ‘victim of its own success’) or the slow implementation of its judgments by some of the worst offenders. One political group in one country is out to shake the very foundations of the European Human Rights System.
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Since Kosovo’s declaration of independence there has been talk about whether there is a “Kosovo precedent,” and, if so, just what does it mean. The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion
captured the imaginations of national parties throughout Europe. For example, Aitor Estaban, a representative from Spain’s Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) said that “the main consequence is that Spain cannot keep saying that the international rules don’t allow for a split of the country for a new Basque independent country into the European Union. So I think that should be already over and that’s good news for us.” (See H. Jamar & M. K. Vigness, ‘Applying Kosovo: Looking to Russia, China, Spain, and Beyond After the International Court of Justice Opinion on Unilateral Declarations of Independence’, 11 German Law Journal (2010) 8, 913, 925.)

Will we now add a “Scotland precedent”  as well as  a “Kosovo precedent?”  Today’s referendum in Scotland has been described as a bellwether or a “canary in the coalmine” signaling the future of nationalism within the European Union. There are currently twenty to twenty-five “significant” separatist movements across Europe. (See, Bruno Coppieters, ‘Secessionist Conflicts in Europe’, in D. H. Doyle (ed.), Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America’s Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements (2010), 237, 247.) Many writers seem to assume that as Scotland goes so does Catalonia, the Basque Countries, Padania, and any number of other parts of EU countries with their own national aspirations. But is this accurate? Would a “Yes” vote—or even just the fact that there is a vote—form some sort of “Scotland precedent?”

First, what do we mean by “precedent?” At times, commentators  use the word to mean, interchangeably, the strict legal sense of a legally binding decision and the looser political sense of a persuasive analogy that can be drawn from a similar case. What role may Scotland’s referendum have in regards to the nationalist movements elsewhere in the EU? Let us consider the number of legal and political factors at play in just one example: Catalonia.

At first blush, the situation in Catalonia may seem similar to that in Scotland. As a political entity, Catalonia has some similarities to Scotland (if slightly larger). As Bloomberg News explains:

Catalonia is a region in the northeast corner of the Iberian peninsula with about 7.5 million people compared with the 5.3 million who live in Scotland. Its 193 billion-euro economy is about the size of Finland’s and compares with the 150 billion-pound gross domestic product of Scotland.

Like Scotland, Catalonia has a distinct linguistic and national heritage. It has a special status within the Spanish state with greater autonomy and it has a population that has been seeking greater levels of independence, if not full separation and sovereignty. And the regional government of Catalonia has scheduled a referendum on independence for this coming November. For more on the history of Catalonia, see this.

Despite these similarities, most international lawyers could see quickly that a domestic referendum in the UK does not provide binding legal precedent for whether or not a domestic referendum in Spain would actually grant independence to Catalonia. Rather, the issue is one of political precedent: persuasive strength. In an argument supporting Catalonia’s referendum, Carles Boix and J.C. Major wrote in Foreign Affairs that, in their view:

International opinion tends to support this referendum, just as it has supported the one that will be held in Scotland this September or those that took place in Quebec a few years ago. Indeed, finding out where everyone stands would appear to be a necessary step to make an informed decision on how to proceed. And yet the Spanish government has not granted the Catalan authorities the power to conduct what would be a non-binding referendum — something that would be perfectly legal according to articles 92 and 150.2 of the Spanish constitution.

But even if one is to argue that Scotland’s referendum is persuasive authority, one first needs to consider whether the analogy is a good one. And, for that, we need to consider once again the legal and political situation. (more…)

We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris beginning early next week about the Scottish independence referendum that will be held next Thursday, September 18th. As we have done in the past with other symposiums, we also welcome other academics to submit guests posts for possible publication. We particularly welcome Scottish, British, EU and state succession experts. We will focus on the international legal aspects of the Scottish referendum, not the political or economic implications of the vote.

We can’t guarantee we will publish every post submitted, but we would love to broaden the discussion to include other voices. So if you want to write a 500 to 1500-word guest post for Opinio Juris about the Scottish independence referendum, please do so in the next few days and send it to Jessica Dorsey and An Hertogen (their emails are linked to the right). Our editorial team will review the posts and publish those selected.

On a personal note, given that the Alford clan hails from the town of Alford in Aberdeenshire, and my wife and I spent several glorious years in Scotland when I earned my LL.M. and she earned her Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh, our family has been following the developments in Scotland closely.

There’s an old Scottish saying: “Scottish by birth, British by law, Highlander by the grace of God.” Next Thursday will put that maxim to the test.

As the military situation in eastern Ukraine become more violent with the incursion of Russian troops, Vladimir Putin has called for talks to determine the statehood of eastern Ukraine. The Interpreter, a website that translates and analyzes Russian media reports, states that in an interview on Russian television Putin said:

We must immediately get down to a substantial, substantive negotiations, and not on technical questions, but on the questions of the political organization of society and statehood in the south-east of Ukraine with the purpose of unconditional provision of the lawful interests of people who live there.

[Translation by website The Interpreter.]

In its analysis of this somewhat cryptic quote, the Interpreter posits:

It is not clear how Putin envisions the “Novorossiya” entity, but given a presentation by his aide Sergei Glazyev yesterday at a conference in Yalta attended by Russian-backed separatists and European far-right party figures, there is a notion to make the amalgamated “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Lugansk People’s Republic” a member of the Customs Union of which Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan are members.

For more on the Eurasian Customs Union, see this previous post.

As for the rhetoric of an independent Novorossiya, described in Foreign Policy as  the rebirth of a forgotton geopolitical term, Anne Applebaum wrote the following this past week in a grim article on Slate:

In the past few days, Russian troops bearing the flag of a previously unknown country, Novorossiya, have marched across the border of southeastern Ukraine. The Russian Academy of Sciences recently announced it will publish a history of Novorossiya this autumn, presumably tracing its origins back to Catherine the Great. Various maps of Novorossiya are said to be circulating in Moscow. Some include Kharkov and Dnipropetrovsk, cities that are still hundreds of miles away from the fighting. Some place Novorossiya along the coast, so that it connects Russia to Crimea and eventually to Transnistria, the Russian-occupied province of Moldova. Even if it starts out as an unrecognized rump state—Abkhazia and South Ossetia, “states” that Russia carved out of Georgia, are the models here—Novorossiya can grow larger over time.

Applebaum notes that for Novorossiya to move from Putin’s rhetoric to political reality will require more than the actions of the Russian army.  “Novorossiya will not be stable as long as it is inhabited by Ukrainians who want it to stay Ukrainian,” she explains.  Moreover, “Novorossiya will also be hard to sustain if it has opponents in the West.” Further sanctions will likely be the centerpiece of the EU and U.S. response.

But while some would say “international law is useless without sanction,” in this case I believe that economic sanctions are not enough without international legal argument.  For the moment, Russia’s strategy seems to be an amalgamation of stealth invasion and quasi-legal rhetoric. The “stealth”  part of the invasion is to maintain a fig-leaf of deniability and to make the uprising in eastern Ukraine seem homegrown as opposed to Russian-led. This strategy of stealth interlocks with Russia’s rhetoric, a quasi-legal/ nationalist amalgamation that attempts to persuade those who can be persuaded and befuddle those who cannot.

However, we are at an inflection point where an important new argument (the apocryphal “once and future Novorissya” argument, in this case) is being sent up like a trial balloon. Perhaps a more accurate metaphor is the idiom: “send it up the flagpole and see who salutes.” Putin and his advisers are sending the flag of Novorissya, figuratively and literally, up the flagpole.

If the EU and U.S. do not want another South Ossetia or Transnistria, then they will have to actively engage Russia’s arguments over what is “right.”  Consider this statement by Putin this week, explaining why the events in Eastern Ukraine confirm that Russia was correct in its actions in Crimea:

Now, I think, it is clear to everyone – when we look at the events in Donbass, Lugansk and Odessa – it is now clear to everyone what would have happened to Crimea, if we had not taken corresponding measures to ensure that people could freely express their will. We did not annex it, we did not seize it, we gave people the opportunity to express themselves and make a decision and we treated that decision with respect.

I feel we protected them.

If the illegality of Russia’s actions is not stressed, if the denial of Ukraine‘s right of self-determination is not emphasized, then the only thing many will hear is the rhetoric of those trying to slice off successive pieces of Ukraine. That rhetoric, unanswered, can reinforce the beliefs of those who want to dismember Ukraine. For others, it may make it seem as if maybe Russia “has a point” and muddy the waters. In both instances, effective sanctions could be perceived as just another example of might overcoming right.  And, rather than resolving the situation, the seeds for further conflict would be planted.

While effective sanctions enforce norms, clear norms strengthen sanctions.

Map credit: Wikimedia Commons via Radiolab

Radiolab has  posted an informative and entertaining essay entitled “How to Cross 5 International Borders in 1 Minute without Sweating.” It describes the intertwined municipalities of the Dutch town Baarle-Nassau and the Belgian town Baarle-Hertog. Here’s the evocative description by Robert Krulwich of Radiolab:

The hunky yellow bit labeled “H1” (for Hartog) toward the bottom is mostly the Belgian town. But notice those little white bits inside the yellow — labeled “N1, N2, N3” — those are little patches of the Dutch town (N for Nassau). The two towns are not geographically separate. Instead, they’re like M&M’s in a candy bowl. There are 22 distinct Belgian bits, and a dozen or so Dutch bits, and they are sprinkled together; so sometimes you’ve got bits of Belgium inside Dutch areas, and sometimes Dutch patches inside Belgian neighborhoods. They vary in size. The largest is 1.54 square kilometers, the smallest, an empty field, is 2,632 square meters.

Krulwich is correct to note that in the Middle Ages “Checkerboard maps were common.” One reason they were common was that feudalism had a different conception of sovereignty than the “modern” conception of sovereignty that became prevalent in the years following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Rather than strictly territorial, medieval sovereignty was in part relational, between lords and subjects as well as between and among varying levels of nobility. With an emphasis on personal loyalty and duty, the feudal conception of sovereignty was like a network of individuals with multiple linkages and relationships.  Displaying such relationships as a territorial map with bold-line boundaries results in a crazy quilt that may actually obscure the complex interwoven relationships.

But the Westphalian emphasis on territorial sovereignty called for such bold-line maps. Areas that started as territorial patchworks were usually consolidated and rationalized. Krulwich continues:

But for some reason, writes Alastair Bonnet in his new book, Unruly Places, it didn’t [happen here]. During Napoleon’s time, villages were swept cleanly into one nation or another, the borders tidied up, but apparently — and no one can quite explain why — Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog escaped the broom. Maybe they were too small, too unimportant, but they made it through, their mosaic-ness intact, becoming, Bonnet says, a “living laboratory of medieval micro-borders.”

For more detail on the land grants, treaties, planning commissions, and other aspects of the history of these two towns, see this website.

This mosaic of sovereignty has led to some incredible results. In a 2008 post on Baarle-Hertog/ Baarle-Nassau,  BLDGBLOG reported that:

Sarah Laitner, at the Financial Times, adds that “women are able to choose the nationality of their child depending on the location of the room in which they give birth.”

For more about the administration of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau, see this .pdf.

The contested status of two specific plots created by these micro-borders led to a dispute before the International Court of Justice, Sovereignty over Certain Frontier Land (Belgium/ Netherlands). The ICJ found that the plots in question were under Belgian sovereignty.

While perhaps the most complex territorial enclave, the two Baarles are not the only examples; see  the website European Small Exclaves. You can also see more about Swiss cheese sovereignties and cartographic discrepancies in this post I wrote a while back. (And the part about cartographic discrepencies should really be considered by that guy trying to found a Kingdom of North Sudan for his daughter…)

[Lucas E. Barreiros is a Professor of Public International Law and Coordinator of International Human Rights Law Masters Program at the University of Buenos Aires.]

While much attention has been paid to the differences and similarities between the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) as well as to the dialogue between them [see here, here, here and here for examples], none of that attention has been devoted to comparing the one aspect of their work that best and most synthetically captures all that sets them apart – that is, the doctrines of “margin of appreciation” and “control of conventionality”. It is proposed here that more attention should be paid to the explanatory power of these two doctrines in understanding the different identities and diverging trajectories of the ECHR and the IACHR.

As known, the “margin of appreciation” doctrine was developed by the ECHR starting in its Handyside v. United Kingdom judgment. It has been understood to refer, as pointed out by Steven Greer, to “the room for manoeuvre that the Strasbourg institutions are prepared to accord to national authorities in fulfilling their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights”. The rationale for allowing this margin of appreciation, as pointed out by the ECHR in Handyside when referring to the conditions set out in the Convention to lawfully restrict the freedom of expression, is that national authorities, “by reason of their direct and continuous contact with the vital forces of their countries (…) are in a better position than the international judge to give an opinion on the exact content of these requirements”.

For its part, the “control of conventionality” was first mentioned by the IACHR in its judgment in the Case of Almonacid Arellano et al v. Chile.The IACHR held that:

“(…) domestic judges and courts are bound to respect the rule of law, and therefore, they are bound to apply the provisions in force within the legal system. But when a State has ratified an international treaty such as the American Convention, its judges, as part of the State, are also bound by such Convention. This forces them to see that all the effects of the provisions embodied in the Convention are not adversely affected by the enforcement of laws which are contrary to its purpose and that have not had any legal effects since their inception. In other words, the Judiciary must exercise a sort of “conventionality control” between the domestic legal provisions which are applied to specific cases and the American Convention on Human Rights. To perform this task, the Judiciary has to take into account not only the treaty, but also the interpretation thereof made by the Inter-American Court, which is the ultimate interpreter of the American Convention.” (emphasis added).

It should be noted that there are two components to the doctrine – one deals with the responsibility of national authorities to ensure that the application of national legislation does not adversely affect the rights under the American Convention of Human Rights; the other, however, is the direct opposite of the “margin of appreciation” as it leaves no room for national authorities to conduct their own assessment and requires them to apply the interpretation of the IACHR.

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Some lawyers at Shearmen & Sterling are no doubt celebrating what may be the largest single arbitration award in history (text of award here). Their client, a shareholder of the expropriated Russian oil company Yukos, has won a $50 billion award against Russia in an investor-state arbitration (seated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration) under the Energy Charter Treaty.   Michael Goldhaber at the American Lawyer has the first and fullest coverage of this historic award.

There are lots of legal battles ahead. Enforcement is going to be challenging, as it always is against sovereign states. And the award has some very interesting observations on legal issues such as the “unclean hands” doctrine under international law.  But for now, this is quite a victory for the plaintiffs to savor and it is already taking a toll on Russia’s stock market.  (And it is a rough few months for the folks over at Cleary Gottlieb, who are also representing Argentina in its unsuccessful battle with its holdout bondholders).

In two decisions (here and here) handed down this morning, the European Court of Human Rights has found that Poland violated its obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights for its complicity in the United States’ running of a CIA black site and high-value detainees program on Polish territory.

One of the cases involved al-Nashiri, who was prosecuted before a U.S. military commission and the subject of protracted habeas litigation in the DC Circuit. He was accused of orchestrating the attack against the USS Cole in 2000. In federal court his lawyers raised the very interesting issue of whether there existed an armed conflict with al-Qaeda at that time (i.e. before 9/11), and whether a military commission could properly assert jurisdiction over a crime that was allegedly committed before (in their view) the commencement of the armed conflict.

Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002, transferred to a CIA prison in Afghanistan (called the “Salt Pit”), then to a CIA facility in Bangkok (called “Cat’s Eye”) where detainee Abu Zubaydah (the subject of the other case) also was held. Both were then transferred to the CIA black site in Poland. After his time in Poland, he was transferred briefly to Morocco on his way to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The decision goes into extensive detail of the CIA interrogation program, including a review of internal CIA documents explaining the interrogation methods that officers were authorized to use against detainees, as well as the unauthorized techniques that were sometimes used. The court concluded that (para. 417):

Assessing all the above facts and evidence as a whole, the Court finds it established beyond reasonable doubt that:

(1)  on 5 December 2002 the applicant, together with Mr Abu Zubaydah, arrived in Szymany on board the CIA rendition aircraft N63MU;

(2)  from 5 December 2002 to 6 June 2003 the applicant was detained in the CIA detention facility in Poland identified as having the codename “Quartz” and located in Stare Kiejkuty;

(3)  during his detention in Poland under the HVD Programme he was interrogated by the CIA and subjected to EITs and also to unauthorised interrogation techniques as described in the 2004 CIA Report, 2009 DOJ Report and the 2007 ICRC Report;

4)  on 6 June 2003 the applicant was transferred by the CIA from Poland on the CIA rendition aircraft N379P.

The ECHR then concludes that Poland was aware of (and complicit) in the CIA activities:

442.  Taking into consideration all the material in its possession (see paragraphs 418-439 above), the Court finds that there is abundant and coherent circumstantial evidence, which leads inevitably to the following conclusions:

(a)  that Poland knew of the nature and purposes of the CIA’s activities on its territory at the material time and that, by enabling the CIA to use its airspace and the airport, by its complicity in disguising the movements of rendition aircraft and by its provision of logistics and services, including the special security arrangements, the special procedure for landings, the transportation of the CIA teams with detainees on land, and the securing of the Stare Kiejkuty base for the CIA’s secret detention, Poland cooperated in the preparation and execution of the CIA rendition, secret detention and interrogation operations on its territory;

(b)  that, given that knowledge and the emerging widespread public information about ill-treatment and abuse of detained terrorist suspects in the custody of the US authorities, Poland ought to have known that, by enabling the CIA to detain such persons on its territory, it was exposing them to a serious risk of treatment contrary to the Convention (see also El‑Masri, cited above, §§ 217-221).

443.  Consequently, Poland was in a position where its responsibility for securing “to everyone within [its] jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined …. in [the] Convention” set forth in Article 1 was engaged in respect of the applicant at the material time.

The Court holds that Poland violated Article 3 of the Convention for its failure to adequately investigate the mistreatment, and for failing to ensure that “individuals within its jurisdiction were not subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including ill-treatment administered by private individuals .”  Again, here is the Court’s holding (para. 517):

Notwithstanding the above Convention obligation, Poland, for all practical purposes, facilitated the whole process, created the conditions for it to happen and made no attempt to prevent it from occurring. As the Court has already held above, on the basis of their own knowledge of the CIA activities deriving from Poland’s complicity in the HVD Programme and from publicly accessible information on treatment applied in the context of the “war on terror” to terrorist suspects in US custody the authorities – even if they did not witness or participate in the specific acts of ill-treatment and abuse endured by the applicant – must have been aware of the serious risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 occurring on Polish territory.

Accordingly, the Polish State, on account of its “acquiescence and connivance” in the HVD Programme must be regarded as responsible for the violation of the applicant’s rights under Article 3 of the Convention committed on its territory (see paragraph 452 above and El-Masri, cited above, §§ 206 and 211).

The Court also found a violation of the article 5 prohibition against arbitrary detention (para. 532), the article 8 prohibition against interference with family life for holding him incommunicado (para. 540), the article 13 requirement of an effective domestic remedy (para. 551), and the article 6 prohibition against an unfair trial (para. 569).

The last holding on article 6 required the Court to conclude that the petitioner’s trial before a U.S. military commission would be unfair — which is a substantial legal determination. Unfortunately, the Court’s analysis on this point is incredibly thin, and relies mostly on the U.S. Supreme Court’s determination in Hamdan that the creation of the tribunals was procedurally defective and violated Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, without much independent analysis. There is no discussion of post-Hamdan military commission reforms.

Finally, the Court concludes that Poland violated its Protocol 6 (abolition of the death penalty) obligations because of the risk that the petitioner would be subject to capital punishment before a U.S. military commission (para. 579).

On Friday, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia signed the Association Agreements with the European Union that have been at the center of so much controversy among Russia, the EU, and these states. Preventing Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia from signing these agreements had become an important foreign policy goal for Moscow (see, for example: 1, 2, 3) after significant pressure, and perhaps some incentives, from Moscow, former Ukrainian President Yanukovich’s decided at the last minute not to sign the agreement at the EU’s summit in Vilnius in November precipitated the demonstrations that began in Kiev. Those were followed by Yanukovich fleeing, Russia’s intervention in and annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing tensions over the future of Ukraine. Moldova and Georgia have also faced threats of economic and/or energy embargoes as well as the ongoing Russia-backed separatist issues in Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia.

After the diplomatic disputes and the pipeline politics, the secessionist movements and Russian military incursions, Maidan Square and Crimean annexation, the signing of these treaties are a significant milestone, and hopefully a turning point. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia are committing themselves to a path of greater economic and normative integration with the EU. The EU is committing itself to allowing market access to the EU; more generally, the EU will likely become increasingly involved the in the internal policies of these countries, although they are not member states.

What is clear is that this is a significant moment, President Poroshenko of Ukraine called it the most important moment for his country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. What is not yet clear is how relations with Russia will evolve from this point. Here are some issues to consider… (more…)