Category: Uncategorised

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…)

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: 14 July 2020 Author: Stefan Talmon

Over the last few years, German-Russian relations have not been at their best. For example, in April/May 2015, the German Federal Parliament experienced a serious cyberattack during which 16 gigabytes of data, confidential documents and e-mails were stolen. The attack also affected the parliamentary office of Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Federal Prosecutor General launched an investigation on suspicion of espionage against Germany on behalf of the intelligence service of a foreign power which on 29 April 2020 led the Investigating Magistrate of the Federal Court of Justice to issue an international arrest warrant for Russian national Dimitri Badin. There was credible evidence that the accused was working for the Russian military intelligence service GRU at the time of the cyberattack. During parliamentary question time on 13 May 2020, Chancellor Merkel implicated Russia in this “outrageous” cyberattack and accused the country of pursuing a “strategy of hybrid warfare, which includes warfare in connection with cyber disorientation and distortion of facts.” (more…)

Published: 09 July 2020 Authors: Stefan Talmon and Mary Lobo

In the wake of the Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine in February 2014, the Russian Federation annexed the Crimean peninsula in March of the same year and tensions between pro-Russian groups in the Eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk (also spelled Luhansk) and the central government in Kiev developed into an outright armed conflict. In April 2014, these groups established the so-called “Lugansk People’s Republic” (LPR) and “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) which, in May of the same year, declared their independence from Ukraine. The declarations of independence, however, were not recognised either by Germany or the international community of States more generally. On 5 September 2014, the Ukrainian Government and the pro-Russian separatists signed a 12-point Protocol in the Belorussian capital Minsk (“Minsk Protocol”) which provided, inter alia, for an immediate ceasefire and the decentralization of power in Ukraine by means of enacting a Law of Ukraine “On interim local self-government order in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions”. The Law provided for a special status for the two regions but recognized them as an integral part of Ukraine. By January 2015, however, the Minsk Protocol ceasefire had completely collapsed and renewed heavy fighting resumed. (more…)

Published: 06 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: 02 July 2020 Author: Patrick Alexander Wittum

Historically, Turkey and Germany have had very close relations. Both countries are allies in NATO, and Turkey is an EU accession candidate. Germany is the most important trading partner and largest foreign investor in Turkey. Germany hosts the world’s largest Turkish community abroad with 2.8 million Turkish immigrants, more than half of which have German citizenship. Since 2016, however, ties between Ankara and Berlin have been strained. On 2 June 2016, the German Federal Parliament characterised the mass murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War as “genocide”. In the aftermath of the abortive coup on 15 July 2016, Turkish authorities sacked or suspended 150,000 officials and detained more than 50,000 people, including several German nationals. Turkey accused Germany of interfering in the 16 April 2017 constitutional referendum by preventing Turkish Ministers from campaigning in Germany, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Germany of “Nazi practices”. (more…)

Published: 29 June 2020 Author: Benjamin Nussberger

Germany has been participating in Operation Inherent Resolve of the Global Coalition against the terrorist organisation Islamic State (Daesh, IS or ISIS) since 2015, providing, inter alia, support in the form of reconnaissance flights and air‑to‑air refuelling over Syria. On 25 March 2020, the Federal Parliament acceded to the Government’s request to amend the mandate of the operation. The deployment of German Tornado aircraft for airborne reconnaissance flights over Syria was terminated with effect from 31 March 2020. This task was taken over by Italy. Germany was to provide ground-based air surveillance instead. The mandate for air-to-air refuelling, on the other hand, was set to expire on 31 March 2020, but was extended until 31 October 2020 because no other State came forward to take over from Germany. In addition, German armed forces were now permitted to provide air transportation to the anti-IS coalition, international organisations, allies and partners. In contrast to the air-to-air refuelling in Syrian air space, the other acts of assistance were confined to the territories of EU and NATO States as well as Iraq, Jordan and neighbouring countries which consented to the presence of German armed forces. (more…)