GPIL – German Practice in International Law

Published: 11 February 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

Under Article 12(2)(a) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute), the International Criminal Court (ICC) may exercise its jurisdiction if the “State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred” is a State Party to the Rome Statute. On 2 January 2015, the State of Palestine deposited its instrument of accession to the Rome Statute with the Secretary-General of the United Nations pursuant to Article 125(2) of the Statute. On 22 May 2018, Palestine referred the “Situation in the State of Palestine” to the Prosecutor pursuant to Articles 13(a) and 14 of the Statute. Palestine requested the Prosecutor to investigate crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction, “committed in all parts of the territory of the State of Palestine” since 13 June 2014. In its referral the State of Palestine specified that its territory comprises “the Palestinian Territory occupied in 1967 by Israel, as defined by the 1949 Armistice Line, and includes the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.” As both the accession of the State of Palestine to the Rome Statute and the referral of the situation to the Prosecutor were controversial, on 22 January 2020 the Prosecutor sought a ruling from the Court under Article 19(3) of the Rome Statute on the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in Palestine. (more…)

Published: 09 February 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 5 October 1929, the three Jewish-owned Frankfurt-based art dealer firms of J.&S. Goldschmidt, I. Rosenbaum, and Z.M. Hackenbroch formed a consortium to purchase a unique collection of 82 medieval relics and devotional objects known as the Welfenschatz, or Guelph treasure, from the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. The treasure of the German Guelph dynasty dates back to the early days of the Holy Roman Empire and occupies a unique position in German history and culture. The consortium intended to resell the Welfenschatz for a profit. However, several weeks after the consortium had bought the treasure, the U.S. stock market crashed leading to a worldwide economic depression which, in turn, caused a fall in art prices. Giving up its initial hope of selling the collection as a whole, the consortium began to sell off pieces to individual collectors. By 1931, about half the treasure had been sold to museums and individuals in Europe and the United States. The rest of the Welfenschatz was stored in Amsterdam. In 1934, about a year after the Nazi party rose to power in Germany, the Dresdner Bank approached the consortium with an offer for the remaining pieces on behalf of the German state of Prussia, which was headed by Nazi leader Hermann Göring – Adolf Hitler’s designated successor. The consortium and the bank negotiated for over a year before agreeing on 14 June 1935 on a price of 4,250,000 Reichsmark, about halfway between the two sides’ initial offers. (more…)

Published: 04 February 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

One of Germany’s priorities for its two-year stint as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2019-2020 was the strengthening of the humanitarian system. Its focus was to be “on improving the application of international humanitarian law, protecting humanitarian aid workers, ensuring humanitarian access and improving the protection of civilian populations in armed conflicts.” It was thus no coincidence that Germany devoted the first day of its Council presidency on 1 April 2019 to the respect for international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles. In the morning of that day, it convened an Arria-formula meeting on the protection of humanitarian and medical personnel in armed conflict which was co-chaired by Germany’s Federal Foreign Minister and his French counterpart. This meeting collected testimonies and proposals for concrete actions from UN agencies and NGOs. This was followed in the afternoon by an open Council meeting which heard a briefing on international humanitarian law and safeguarding the humanitarian space: that is, the ability of those who provide assistance to victims of armed conflicts to carry out their mission safely and effectively. At the meeting, Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas identified three points with regard to humanitarian space: (more…)

Published: 02 February 2021 Author: Mirjam Reiter

As a consequence of growing nationalist and populist tendencies in several countries in recent years, Germany identified a “worldwide crisis of multilateralism”. To counter this development, in the summer of 2018 Germany’s Federal Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, held talks with his counterparts in several countries, including Canada, France and Japan, on what could be done to prevent the disintegration of the international order. This gave rise to the idea of “an alliance for multilateralism” – a network of partner countries who stand up together for the preservation and further development of the rules-based order and who defend multilateralism. Foreign Minister Maas defined multilateralism as follows: (more…)

Published: 28 January 2021 Author: Christian Richter

On 18 October 2019, the German Federal Foreign Office presented a diplomatic note to the Greek Ambassador to Berlin, formally rejecting Greece’s demands for the payment of war reparations and compensation for the First and Second World Wars. The Federal Government thereby responded to a note delivered by the Greek Ambassador on 4 June 2019, requesting the opening of negotiations on the Greek demands. In a statement to German news agency dpa on the same day, a spokesperson for the Federal Foreign Office explained: (more…)

Published: 26 January 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

During the Second World War Germany occupied parts or all of mainland Greece from April 1941 to October 1944, with some Greek islands only being liberated in May 1945. During the military operations and occupation large parts of Greek infrastructure was destroyed, resources were exploited, and means of production were dismantled and transferred to Germany. The German armed forces also committed numerous war crimes and atrocities. Germany also extracted an interest-free loan of some 476 million Reichsmarks from the Greek National Bank which was used to finance the occupation and the military campaign in north Africa. (more…)

Published: 21 January 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 5 December 2014, 10 members of the UN Security Council wrote a letter to the Council’s President expressing their deep concern about “the scale and gravity of human rights violations” in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), and requested that the situation in the DPRK be formally placed on the Council’s agenda. The matter was taken up at the 7353^rd Council meeting on 22 December 2014. The 10 Council members first sought the establishment of a new agenda item, “The situation in the DPRK”, under which the Council could, as a matter of urgency and then as necessary, consider the serious and deteriorating human rights situation in that country. Second, they requested that a formal meeting under the agenda item should be held immediately. The establishment of agenda items and the adoption of the agenda at a meeting are procedural matters, decisions on which require the affirmative vote of nine Council members. China and Russia were opposed to both matters, arguing, inter alia, that human rights issues did not fall within the mandate of the Security Council, which was the maintenance of international peace and security, and warning against the politicisation of human rights issues. The agenda was adopted with 11 votes in favour, 2 against (China and Russia) and two abstentions (Chad and Nigeria). (more…)

Published: 19 January 2021 Authors: Stefan Talmon and Julian Craven

During the Six-Day-War in June 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip, the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and the Syrian Golan. It has occupied these territories ever since. In 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, and in the following year it annexed the Syrian Golan. Both acquisitions of territory were not recognised by the international community, which considered these annexations null and void and without international legal effect. The United Nations and most States, including Germany, continue to regard Israel as the “occupying Power” in the territories captured in 1967, to which the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention continue to apply. Notwithstanding the position of the international community, over the years Israel has moved some 25,000 Israeli settlers to the Syrian Golan, who today live in the territory alongside the remaining Syrian Druze population, which is about equal in size. In the West Bank, more than 611,000 people live in 131 official Israeli settlements and some 110 so-called “out-posts” without any legal basis. Some 210,000 of these Israeli settlers live in annexed East Jerusalem and in the Palestinian areas which Israel incorporated into Greater Jerusalem. In 2005, Israel evacuated all settlements in the Gaza Strip. Today, about 11% of the Israeli population live in settlements in the occupied or annexed territories. The Israeli settlements are of varying forms and sizes: while some are proper cities with several, sometimes tens of thousands of inhabitants and comprehensive infrastructure, others are little more than a few buildings or mobile homes. Some of the settlements are independent towns, while others lie on the edge of or as enclaves within Palestinian towns. Israeli settlements are accompanied by the building of roads and other infrastructure in the occupied territories. Settlement activities in strategic locations, especially around East Jerusalem, foreclose the creation of a viable and contiguous State of Palestine and thus make impossible any negotiated two-State solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (more…)

Published: 14 January 2021 Authors: Stefan Talmon and Roman Kenny-Manning

On 19 November 2020, the Higher Regional Court in Stuttgart sentenced the 32-year-old Syrian national Fares A. B. to 12 years’ imprisonment for, inter alia, an attempted war crime against persons by killing and a war crime against persons by torture, as well as membership of the foreign terrorist organisation “Islamic State” (IS). (more…)

Published: 12 January 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

The Islamic Defenders Front, commonly known by its Indonesian acronym, FPI, is a controversial and politically influential hardline Islamist group. Founded in 1998, the FPI has gained notoriety for intolerant views against people of different faiths and vandalism on businesses such as bars and brothels they consider an affront to the Islamic law. On 10 November 2020, the spiritual leader of the group, Muslim cleric Muhammad Rizieq Shihab, returned to Indonesia from self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia to rapturous crowds,  and called for a “moral revolution”. The return raised concerns of reigniting tensions between the largely secular government and the FPI in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country. On 7 December 2020, six FPI supporters were killed in a shootout with police; five days later, Rizieq was arrested for breaching coronavirus restrictions by holding gatherings of thousands of people. On 18 December 2020, the FPI staged a protest in Central Jakarta demanding an investigation into the death of the six FPI members and the release of the FPI leader Rizieq Shihab. On 30 December 2020, the Indonesian Government outlawed the FPI with immediate effect. It was stated that nearly 30 of its leaders, members and former members had been convicted on terrorism charges and because the group conflicted with the nation’s State ideology, Pancasila, which emphasises unity and diversity. (more…)