Regions

The WTO's new Director-General Roberto Azevedo is celebrating a rare event:  The WTO's entire 159-country membership has finally reached  a new multilateral agreement.  This is the first time that the WTO's membership as a whole (as opposed to smaller groups of its member states) has reached an agreement since it was formed in 1994 and the first set of agreements under...

[Sondre Torp Helmersen is an LLM candidate at the University of Cambridge, teaches at the University of Oslo, and is an editor at the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law.] The recent nuclear deal between Iran and the “P5+1” may potentially bookend a long period of intermittent diplomatic troubles for Iran. The mutual distrust and hostile rhetoric that have accompanied (and obstructed) the negotiations are traceable to the fallout over the taking of US diplomats in Tehran as hostages in 1979, in what is usually called the Iran hostage crisis. The diplomatic breakthrough that the deal represents provides an opportunity to revisit the impact of that crisis on the current state of diplomatic law. Some parts of its legacy are widely appreciated, while others are less well understood. This post will focus on a somewhat overlooked distinction, namely that between countermeasures against abuses of diplomatic immunity and violations of diplomatic immunity as countermeasures.

1. Background: The Tehran case and self-contained regimes

The hostage crisis led to a judgment by the International Court of Justice (the Tehran case, [1980] ICJ Rep 3). The Court found that actions attributable to Iran had violated the diplomats’ immunity. Iran argued, among other things, that the hostage takings could be seen as countermeasures against foregoing abuses of diplomatic immunity by the diplomats. Responding to this, the Court pronounced as follows:
“... diplomatic law itself provides the necessary means of defence against, and sanction for, illicit activities by members of diplomatic or consular missions.” (para 83) “The rules of diplomatic law, in short, constitute a self-contained regime which, on the one hand, lays down the receiving State’s obligations regarding the facilities, privileges and immunities to be accorded to diplomatic missions and, on the other, foresees their possible abuse by members of the mission and specifies the means at the disposal of the receiving States to counter any such abuse. These means are, by their nature, entirely efficacious, for unless the sending State recalls the member of the mission objected to forthwith, the prospect of the almost immediate loss of his privileges and immunities, because of the withdrawal by the receiving State of his recognition as a member of the mission, will in practice compel that person, in his own interest, to depart at once.” (para 86)
The interpretation and ramifications of these passages are still debated. There are (at least) four possible readings.

One hundred and ten years ago next month, British geographer Halford Mackinder presented a paper at the Royal Geographical Society in London entitled “The Geographical Pivot of History,” setting out the basic tenets of what we now call “geopolitics.”  Strategic thinking during the Cold War was in part framed by geopolitical ideas such as the struggle over key territory in...

The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the ICC just released its 2013 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities. There is much to chew over in the report, but what is most striking is the OTP's slow-walking of its preliminary examination into crimes committed in Afghanistan. The OTP divides preliminary examinations into four phases: (1) initial assessment, which filters out requests for...

The Assembly of States Parties (ASP) has adopted three new rules of procedure -- RPE 134 bis, ter, and quater -- designed to minimize the obligation of accused to be physically present at trial. The OTP will almost certainly challenge the new rules. So will any of them survive judicial review? Rule 134bis Rule 134bis concerns video technology: 1.      An accused subject to a summons...

Two of the four men arrested on suspicion of witness tampering and manufacturing evidence in the Bemba case appeared before the Court today, along with Bemba himself. Not surprisingly, defence counsel for the defence counsel focused on the various ways in which the arrests will prejudice Bemba's case: Meanwhile, defense lawyers for the accused stated that the new charges had harmed...

Article 51(4) of the Rome Statute: The Rules of Procedure and Evidence, amendments thereto and any provisional Rule shall be consistent with this Statute. Article 63(1) of the Rome Statute: The accused shall be present during the trial. New Rule 134ter of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence: An accused subject to a summons to appear may submit a written request to the Trial Chamber...

I don't have any insights to offer on the big news this weekend, that legally-non binding-UNSC-resolution-violating agreement in Geneva.  But I did want to note one other big sort-of-law news item from the other side of the world: China's announcement that it is drawing an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, including over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku...

The ICC has announced that four individuals associated with the Bemba case, including Bemba's lead counsel and case manager, have been arrested on suspicion of witness tampering and manufacturing evidence: On 23 and 24 November 2013, the authorities of the Netherlands, France, Belgium and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) acting pursuant to a warrant of arrest issued by Judge...

A few days ago, in response to reports of an imminent deal between P5+1 and Iran concerning Iran's uranium enrichment, Tyler Cullis and Ryan Goodman debated whether Iran has a "right" to develop nuclear power for civilian purposes. Tyler argued that Iran does, citing (inter alia) Art. IV of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT): Nothing in this Treaty...

[This Post has been updated]. One of the main benefits of attending a conference (rather than just reading descriptions of its proceedings), is the chance to have face-to-face exchanges with individuals you normally never get a chance to meet.  One of the unusual aspects of the Asian Society of International Law is that it draws lawyers from many different Asian...