Category: Uncategorised

Published: 21 October 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-165616-0

In its ninth year, the armed conflict in Syria saw a new development. On 9 October 2019, Turkey launched a military incursion into north-eastern Syria, code-named “Operation Peace Spring”. The aim of the operation was to “counter the imminent terrorist threat” caused by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considered to be the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK had been fighting for an independent Kurdish State since the 1980s and was listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. The “PKK/PYD/YPG” occupied large parts of Syrian territory along the border with Turkey and regularly carried out cross-border attacks on Turkish military posts and civilians. Turkey intended to establish a so-called “safe zone” extending some 32 kilometres into Syria along the 444 kilometre-long boundary between the two States in order to ensure Turkey’s border security and to liberate Syrians from the tyranny of terrorist organizations. Turkey which hosted some 3.6 million Syrian refugees also planned to re-settle up to 2 million of these refugees in that zone. (more…)

Published: 21 October 2019  Author: Benjamin Nussberger  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-165019-0

On 18 September 2019, the Federal Government requested the German Parliament to extend the mandate to continue to deploy German armed forces to fight the so called “Islamic State” (ISIL). The Government’s request sets out in detail the legal basis for the military operations.

The legal considerations did not substantially depart from the Federal Government’s previous justifications. The use of armed forces in Iraq was still based on the “Iraqi Government’s continuously valid request and continued consent.” For the operations in Syria, the Federal Government continued to rely on collective self-defence on behalf and on request of Iraq against attacks from ISIL, “in connection with” Security Council resolution 2249 (2015). (more…)

Published: 21 October 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-164144-0 

On 14 September 2019, a combined drone and cruise missile attack was carried out on Saudi Arabia’s Khurais oil field and Abquiq oil-processing plant. The attack briefly interrupted the supply of an estimated 5.7 million barrels of crude oil per day – around five per cent of global supply. The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen which are engaged in an armed conflict with Saudi Arabia claimed responsibility for the attack on the facilities, but Saudi Arabia and the United States blamed the attack on Iraq which denied any involvement. In a letter to the United Nations, Saudi Arabia stated: “All preliminary signs and indicators reveal that this attack did not emanate from Yemeni lands as claimed by the terrorist Houthi militia, and that the weapons used were Iranian-made.” Saudi Arabia launched an investigation into who was responsible for the attack and invited United Nations and international experts to view the situation on the ground and to participate in the investigations. On 19 September 2019, a team of experts from the United Nations Sanctions Committees on Yemen arrived in Saudi Arabia to join the investigation. (more…)

Published: 16 October 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-153522-0

On 18 June 2019, U.S. social media company Facebook announced plans for offering to its 2.4 billion users a new blockchain-based global digital currency called Libra in 2020. As a stabelcoin cryptocurrency, Libra is to be backed by traditional assets such a money deposits, short-term government securities or gold. (more…)

Published: 10 October 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-152926-0

In an Order, dated 17 September 2019, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court dismissed as inadmissible an application brought by a parliamentary opposition group in the German Bundestag seeking a declaration that, by approving the deployment of German armed forces to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed by the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIL), the Federal Government and the Bundestag had violated the German Constitution. In its decision the Federal Constitutional Court also addressed the question of self-defence against non-State actors. (more…)

Published: 03 August 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-152124-0

Humanitarian assistance in case of crisis, conflict or disaster is an integral and defining part of German foreign policy. In 2012, the Federal Foreign Office published its first Strategy for Humanitarian Assistance Abroad (the “2012 Strategy”). Since then, the way humanitarian assistance is delivered has changed and developed further – not the least following the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) held in Istanbul in May 2016. In June 2019, a new Strategy for Humanitarian Assistance Abroad 2019-2023 (the “2019 Strategy”) was issued which sets out the principles guiding Germany’s provision of humanitarian assistance as follows: (more…)

Published: 02 August 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-151252-0

On 16 July 2019, Germany deposited its instrument of accession of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships with the IMO Secretary-General at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Headquarters in London, thus becoming the 13^th party to the Convention. (more…)

Published: 11 July 2019  Author: Rosie Good  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-162945-0

On 3 April 2019, an indictment was brought against German national Mine K. before the State Security Senate of the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf. The Federal Prosecutor alleges that Mine K. joined the foreign terrorist organisation Islamic State (“IS”) through a video-call marriage to an IS fighter in January 2015. Subsequently, she travelled with her young son and new husband to Mosul, Iraq, where her husband earned about 250 USD a month as an IS fighter. In August 2015, they moved to the city of Tal Afar in Iraq. The city and surrounding area had already been conquered and occupied by the Islamic State in June 2014. The terrorist organization placed houses in the city under their administration after their rightful inhabitants had fled or been driven out by IS fighters. The family of the accused received one of these houses for use. They moved willingly into the house in order to consolidate the territorial claim of the organization, and to make recapture by opposing military forces more difficult. (more…)

Published: 29 June 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-145237-0

In the second half of June 2019, several candidates nominated by Germany were elected to serve on various international human rights bodies.

United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

On 21 June 2019, the twenty-eighth meeting of the States Parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination elected Professor Mehrdad Payandeh, together with eight other candidates to serve on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Sixteen candidates had initially been nominated, and 14 finally stood for election for nine vacant positions. The Committee is a body of 18 “experts of high moral standing and acknowledged impartiality” that monitors implementation of the Convention. Germany has been a party to the Convention since 15 June 1969. There are currently 181 parties to the Convention. CERD members are elected for four-year terms, with half the members elected every two years. The new members will begin their terms of office on 19 January 2020. (more…)

Published: 01 June 2019  Author: Stefan Talmon  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-144731-0

On 9 April 2019 the first-ever war crimes trial against a member of the “Islamic State” started before the Higher Regional Court of Munich. The Federal Prosecutor alleges that Jennifer Wenisch, a German national, joined the decision-making and command structure of the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State (“IS”) in Iraq in September 2014. From June to September 2015, she patrolled parks in IS-occupied Fallujah and Mossul as a member of the IS morality police, enforcing rules of conduct and dress code for women. In order to intimidate she carried a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a pistol and an explosives vest. For her services she received a monthly salary from the Islamic State of some US$70 to 100. According to the indictment, it was during the summer of 2015 that the accused and her husband “bought a five-year old [Yazidi] girl out of a group of prisoners of war and subsequently kept the child in their household as a slave.” After the girl fell ill and wet her mattress, the husband of the accused chained her up outside as punishment and let the child die an agonizing death of thirst in scorching heat. The accused allowed her husband to do so and did nothing to save the girl. (more…)