Author: Rohan Sinha

On 24 February 2021, the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz sentenced Eyad Al-Gharib to four years and six months in prison for his role as an officer of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate. The Court found Al-Gharib guilty of aiding and abetting a crime against humanity by torture and grave deprivation of liberty under the German Code of Crimes against International Law (CCAIL). Section 7 of the CCAIL provides in the relevant parts: (more…)

Published: 06 July 2021 Author: Rohan Sinha

On 26 July 2019, the Higher Regional Court in Munich sentenced Ahmad Zaheer D., a former officer of the Afghan National Army, to two years’ probation for, inter alia, grievous bodily harm, coercion and attempted coercion, as well as the war crime of outrages upon human dignity. During the non-international armed conflict in Afghanistan between government forces and the Taliban in 2013/2014, the accused had mistreated three captured Taliban fighters during interrogation and had desecrated the dead body of a high-ranking Taliban commander. (more…)

Published: 05 January 2021 Authors: Rohan Sinha and Stefan Talmon

Nord Stream 2 is a 1,230 kilometre underwater natural gas pipeline project through the Baltic Sea. The pipeline passes through the territorial sea and/or Exclusive Economic Zone of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The construction of the pipeline began in 2018 and by the end of 2019 the project was almost compete, having received all necessary construction permits from the coastal States. Upon completion, Nord Stream 2 will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany, adding to the supply provided by the existing Nord Stream pipeline which runs largely parallel to it. The total export capacity of Nord Stream 2 is projected to be 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year, which is the same capacity as the already operational Nord Stream pipeline. (more…)

Published: 16 July 2020 Author: Rohan Sinha

Between 1998 and 2010, the Hellenic Republic issued various sovereign bonds, which were subject to Greek law and traded as book-entry securities at the Athens stock exchange. These securities were registered in the Greek Central Bank’s securities settlement system and could be purchased by participants in the securities settlement system, upon which the participants became the holders and creditors of these bonds. According to Greek law, the participants could grant rights to those bonds to third-party investors, although the transaction by which those rights were granted was effective only between the parties concerned and expressly did not operate to the benefit or detriment of the Hellenic Republic. (more…)

Published: 1 May 2020 Author: Rohan Sinha

On 10 July 2019, the Regional Court in Wiesbaden sentenced Ali Bashar Ahmad Zebari to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of Susanna Feldmann. The criminal trial attracted large public attention in Germany because, following the crime, the accused had fled to northern Iraq, from where he was repatriated to Germany under rather unusual circumstances. After an arrest warrant had been issued against the accused, he was traced to the autonomous region of Kurdistan-Iraq, where he was arrested on 8 June 2018 by Kurdish security forces at the request of the German Federal Police. The next day, the head of the Federal Police himself travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan to bring him back. The head of the Federal Police and two members of his staff met with Kurdish officials at Erbil International Airport “for reasons of protocol” while other federal officers who were accompanying him remained in the plane. According to the Federal Police, the Kurdish security forces delivered the accused right to the door of the plane and handed him over to Federal Police officers. He boarded the plane voluntarily and was brought back to Germany without being handcuffed or otherwise restrained. The Federal Government insisted that the police officers on board were present only to ensure aviation security. The operation was described as a “deportation”, rather than an extradition. The accused arrived back in Germany on 9 June 2018, where he was formally arrested. He was interrogated and brought before an investigating judge who ordered his pre-trial detention. The accused confessed the murder of the 14-year old schoolgirl but denied raping her. (more…)

Published: 4 February 2020 Authors: Rohan Sinha and Stefan Talmon

Under Germany’s Federal Elections Act persons who are under full guardianship and criminal offenders confined in a psychiatric hospital were disenfranchised from voting. Eight persons affected by these restrictions challenged their disenfranchisement in an electoral complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court. On 29 January 2019, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the relevant provisions in the Elections Act unconstitutional as they violated the constitutional principles of universal suffrage and the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of disability. However, the Federal Constitutional Court also confirmed that under constitutional law it may be generally justified to exclude disabled persons from exercising the right to vote if they must be considered not sufficiently capable of participating in the communications process between the people and State organs. This finding put the Federal Constitutional Court on a collision course with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee).

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Published: 8 January 2020 Authors: Rohan Sinha and Stefan Talmon

On 6 April 2018, the United States announced sanctions against Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and companies owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by him, including United Company Rusal Plc (Rusal). Rusal is the world’s second largest supplier of aluminium and alumina (an essential ingredient in processing aluminium), providing about 6% of the global supply of alumina and aluminium. Announcing the sanctions, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin declared: (more…)

Published: 18 December 2019  Authors: Rohan Sinha and Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220127-112949-0

The Republic of China (ROC) was founded on 1 January 1912 upon the downfall of the Qing dynasty in China. The island of Taiwan lies some 180 kilometres off the south-eastern coast of mainland China. Taiwan and its outlying islands were ceded to Japan by China in 1895 after the First Sino-Chinese War. After the Japanese surrender in the Second World War on 25 October 1945 ROC troops occupied Taiwan and its neighbouring islands. In the Treaty of San Francisco, which re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers, Japan renounced “all right, title and claim” to the island. In the last phase of the Chinese civil war, the Nationalist Government of the ROC under General Chiang Kai-shek was forced by its Communist opponents to abandon mainland China and to relocate to Taiwan. By proclamation of 8 December 1949, the Nationalist Government transferred the capital of the ROC from mainland China to Taipei, the capital of the island of Taiwan. On 1 September 1949, the Communist counter-government under Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Communist Government in Beijing informed all States that it considered itself the sole legal Government of China, and that it was ready to establish diplomatic relations “with any foreign Government willing to observe the principles of equality, mutual benefit, and mutual respect of territory and sovereignty.” Precondition for diplomatic relations with the PRC Government was, however, that foreign governments severed their relations with the Nationalist Government in Taipei. (more…)