GPIL – German Practice in International Law

Published: 30 October 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

In response to Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attack against Israel on 7 October 2023, in which more than 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, were brutally killed, more than 5,300 wounded, and some 230 abducted to the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) bombed Hamas targets in Gaza and, on 9 October 2023, declared a total siege of the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that ‘[t]here will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.’ Hamas, nevertheless, continued to fire rockets indiscriminately towards Israel. By 13 October 2023, Israeli airstrikes had killed some 1,800 Palestinians, including some 580 children, and injured about 7,300. In addition, some 423,000 civilians were displaced within the Gaza Strip due to the military strikes. Against the background of an impending humanitarian catastrophe, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for ‘pauses in the fighting’ to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. On 13 October 2023, the Russian Federation put forward a draft resolution for consideration by the Security Council, which called for ‘an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire’. On 18 October 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres joined the call for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space … to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing.’ (more…)

Published: 23 October 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 7 October 2023, a Jewish Sabbath day, Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups indiscriminately fired between 3,000–5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israel while, at the same time, more than 1,000 Hamas militants breached Israel’s heavily fortified security fence surrounding the territory to launch unprecedented attacks in multiple locations in Israel. Hamas fighters indiscriminately killed and injured Israeli security forces and civilians, including some 260 people attending a music festival in southern Israel. Some 1,300 Israelis, including many women and children, were killed and more than 3,000 injured – the largest number of Jewish victims in a single day since the holocaust. In addition, Hamas abducted some 200 Israelis to the Gaza Strip where they were kept as hostages. These despicable actions of Hamas constituted egregious violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. (more…)

Published: 04 October 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 23 May 2021, Ryanair Flight FR4978, a commercial passenger aircraft flying from Greece to Lithuania, was diverted by Belarusian air traffic control under the pretext of a bomb threat to Minsk Airport while passing through the airspace of the Republic of Belarus. Upon landing, the Belarusian authorities arrested two passengers on board – Belarusian blogger and political activist Roman Protasevich and his then partner Sofia Sapega – on charges of inciting unrest against the government of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Protasevich was a co-founder and editor of the Telegram messaging application Nexta, which played a key role in the massive protests against President Lukashenko after the rigged presidential elections in August 2020. After having been placed under house arrest for almost two years, Protasevich was sentenced on 3 May 2023 to eight years in prison for organising mass riots, preparing public disorder and creating or leading an extremist group. Sapega had earlier been sentenced to six years. Both were later pardoned by President Lukashenko. (more…)

Published: 21 September 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

The Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) was formally adopted by an intergovernmental conference convened by the UN General Assembly in New York on 19 June 2023. (more…)

Published: 21 September 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 19 September 2023, some three years after an all-out war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh – an ethnic Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan – Azerbaijan began military operations against what it called ‘illegal Armenian armed groups’ in Nagorno-Karabakh. Tensions had been building around the region for months after Azerbaijani troops blockaded the Lachin corridor, cutting off the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The tensions had given rise to a flurry of peace talks between the conflicting parties in Washington, Brussels and Moscow. (more…)

Published: 5 September 2023 Author: Stefan Talmon

Despite the fact that ‘Palestine’ was accorded non-member observer State status in the United Nations in 2012, enjoyed bilateral recognition from 139 States, and acceded to numerous multilateral treaties, Germany did not recognize a State of Palestine. German courts also regularly ruled that there was no Palestinian State and no Palestinian nationality. In an order of 19 January 2022, the Higher Regional Court of Berlin accepted for the first time ‘Palestine’ as a State of origin and – albeit indirectly – a Palestinian nationality for the limited purposes of private international law. (more…)

Published: 31 August 2023 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 15 July 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan), announced the signing of an air services agreement between Taiwan and Germany. The signing ceremony was conducted in a hybrid format. The document was signed at the Ministry of Transportation and Communication in Taipei by the Director General of the German Institute Taipei, Germany’s representation on the island. The signing was witnessed by the Minister of Transport and Communication and the Director-General of the Europe Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Parliamentary Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Steffen Bilger, delivered a congratulatory message via a prerecorded video. At the same time, the document was signed at the Taipei Representative Office in Berlin by Taiwan’s representative in Germany who was connected via video link. The agreement took effect immediately. (more…)

Published: 29 August 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 13 July 2023, about one month after the unveiling of Germany’s first ever National Security Strategy (NSS), the Federal Government adopted its long-awaited comprehensive Strategy on China. The 64-page document aimed ‘to present the Federal Government’s views on the status of and prospects for relations with China’. In both, the Strategy on China and the NSS, China was identified as a ‘partner, competitor and systemic rival’. In a keynote speech at the annual China Forecast event of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin in January 2022, the Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, Tobias Lindner, had stated with regard to FUTURE Sino-German relations that ‘[w]e want to cooperate with China, wherever this is possible based on international law and within the framework of the rules based international order.’ International law and the rules-based international order thus featured prominently in the new China Strategy. (more…)

Published: 18 July 2023  Authors: Khaled El Mahmoud and Stefan Talmon

More than any other issue, the question of the delivery of German Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine dominated both the domestic political debate and the foreign policy debate in Germany in January 2023. In addition to the question of whether Germany itself would supply such tanks, there was also the question of whether Germany would grant EU and NATO member States, which had acquired such tanks from Germany, the permission to re-export them to Ukraine, as required by the so-called end-use certificates (EUC). (more…)

Published: 26 June 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 14 June 2023, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and members of his cabinet unveiled Germany’s first ever National Security Strategy (NSS), entitled ‘Robust. Resilient. Sustainable. Integrated Security for Germany’. The 73-page document outlined the Federal Government’s approach to guaranteeing the country’s security and strengthening it against external threats. The NSS contained twenty-three references to ‘international law’, which was employed fourteen times in connection with ‘free international order’ or just ‘international order’. The ‘free international order’ thus emerged as a key novel concept of the new Strategy. (more…)