Author: Stefan Talmon

Published: 20 October 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

At least since 2018, Germany has repeatedly expressed concern over the human rights situation in Xinjiang, which has triggered strong rebukes from China. However, this did not prevent Germany from continuing to raise the human rights situation in China’s autonomous region in various UN bodies throughout 2020. On 30 June 2020, Germany signed up to a joint statement by 28 mainly western States at the 44^th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) which read in the relevant part: (more…)

Published: 15 October 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China is the country’s largest administrative region, making up one sixth of Chinese territory. The region was first officially named “Xinjiang” – which literally means “New Borderlands” – and given the status of a provincial administrative area by the Chinese Emperor in 1764. It borders Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Its geographic location gives it a strategic position in Central Asia. In recent years, oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang which make it China’s largest natural gas-producing region. With only some 25 million inhabitants, it is sparsely populated. The region’s native population is the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking mainly Muslim ethnic group, which is culturally and ethnically close to other Central Asian nations. Initially the predominant majority population, today it makes up only some 45 percent of the inhabitants. Over time, more and more Han Chinese moved to the region, who today account for at least 40 percent of the population. The rest is made up by several other, smaller ethnic groups. This has led to inter-ethnic tensions. (more…)

Published: 12 October 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

The more than three-decades-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh gained renewed international attention when, at the end of September 2020, fierce fighting broke out along the Line of Contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. On 29 September 2020, after speaking with the Armenian Prime Minister and the Azerbaijani President, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urgently called for an immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table. Germany also pushed for the conflict to be discussed under “any other business” in a closed UN Security Council meeting of the same day. During the meeting, the German representative stated: “We believe that conflict resolution in this case must be based on the Helsinki-Principles of non-use of force, territorial integrity and self-determination, and on the Madrid Principles.” (more…)

Published: 05 October 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

In early July 2020, members of the media noticed that, unlike with all other countries and territories, including China’s special administrative region of Hong Kong, there was no flag depicted under the entry for “Taiwan” on the country information pages on the Federal Foreign Office’s website. This gave rise to – unsubstantiated – claims that the flag had been removed and replaced with a blank white rectangular banner. A reporter asked the Federal Foreign Office whether the white rectangular image under the heading “Taiwan” could be interpreted as Germany having raised the white flag in surrender to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). (more…)

Published: 02 October 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

Throughout the year, Germany makes numerous statements on international law. Not all these statements form part of a case study presented on GPIL. However, these statements may nevertheless be of interest to international lawyers. We therefore compile these statements on a monthly basis. (more…)

Published: 24 September 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

Over the years, there have been a number of heated debates on the Middle East conflict at the United Nations. However, the exchange in the Security Council on 23 July 2019 between the Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations, Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, and the Assistant to the U.S. President and Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason D. Greenblatt, should be remembered not just for the two countries’ different approaches to the Middle East peace process, but also, and more importantly, for their different outlooks on international law. (more…)

Published: 21 September 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

The debate about the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’s announcement in the House of Commons on 8 September 2020 that the UK Internal Market Bill would “break international law in a very specific and limited way” has unearthed some notable examples of breaches of international law by other States. One little known such breach concerned Germany’s disregard for the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (the IMF Treaty) and the so-called “Smithsonian Agreement” in March 1973. The breach was admitted in a private meeting only in 1978 and became known to the general public only some 30 years later when the transcript of the meeting was declassified. (more…)

Published: 27 July 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

Throughout the year, Germany makes numerous statements on international law. Not all these statements form part of a case study presented on GPIL. However, these statements may nevertheless be of interest to international lawyers. We therefore compile these statements on a monthly basis. (more…)

Published: 23 July 2020 Authors: Mirjam Reiter and Stefan Talmon

Dr. Moncef Kartas, a Tunisian-German dual national, had been a member and arms expert of the United Nations Panel of Experts on Libya since May 2016. The Panel had been established pursuant to Security Council resolution 1973 (2011) to investigate allegations of violations of the arms embargo and other sanctions imposed on Libya. On 26 March 2019, shortly before the Panel was to submit an interim report to the Security Council, Dr. Kartas was arrested on espionage charges upon arrival in Tunis. He was accused of gathering intelligence information concerning national security through interference, interception and audio surveillance and disclosing that information to foreign governments. It was argued, in particular, that he possessed special radio devices used to track civil and military aviation, the use of which required official authorisation in Tunisia. (more…)

Published: 20 July 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh dates back to the late 1980s, when the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic started to make territorial claims against its fellow Soviet Socialist Republic. The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, with its capital, Stepanakert, was part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, but its population was approximately 75 per cent ethnic Armenian (145,000) and 25 per cent ethnic Azeri (40,688). Inter-ethnic violence broke out in early February 1988 after calls for the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. In July 1988, the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) rejected Armenian demands for unification. In January 1989, the USSR Government placed Nagorno-Karabakh under Moscow’s direct rule, but this did not end the clashes between Armenians and Azeris. During the disintegration of the USSR, Azerbaijan declared its independence on 18 October 1991. A month later, the Azerbaijani parliament in Baku annulled Nagorno-Karabakh’s status of autonomous oblast. (more…)