GPIL – German Practice in International Law

Published: 23 January 2024  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 19 November 2023, the Iranian-Backed Houthi movement, which controlled large parts of Yemen, began attacking commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea in order to show their support for the terrorist organisation Hamas in its fight against Israel. The Houthis declared they were targeting ships which were Israeli-owned, flagged or operated, or which were heading to Israeli ports. However, the attacks had a broader impact on international commercial shipping. Nearly 15 percent of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, including 8 percent of global grain trade, 12 percent of seaborne-traded oil and 8 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas trade. As a result of the attacks, international shipping companies decided to reroute their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope rather than sail them through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. This led to major disruptions of international shipping and, consequently, international supply lines. (more…)

Published: 22 January 2024  Author: Joshua Wirtz

As the new year commences, we reflect on the past one. Continuing our tradition of sharing the past year’s statistics with our readers, we are pleased to do the same this year:

• Posts published: 31
• Visitors: 99,034 (up 33,362 from last year)
• Visits: 2,430,460 (up 1,471,993 from last year)
• Subscribers to our newsletter: 265
• Average number of pageviews for all posts in 2023: 317
• Average number of pageviews for new posts published in 2023: 642
• Average number of pageviews for all posts since 2017: 950

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Published: 15 January 2024  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 7 October 2023, Hamas and other terrorist groups launched an attack against Israel, during which 695 Israeli civilians, including thirty-six children, as well as 373 security forces and seventy-one foreigners were killed, some 3,300 wounded, and more than 240 abducted to the Gaza Strip. In response, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) conducted a massive military operation in the Gaza Strip in order to eliminate Hamas, return the hostages and ensure that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza as of 28 December 2023 at least 21,320 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza. Approximately 70 per cent of those killed were said to be women and children. In addition, 55,603 Palestinians had been injured and many more were missing. Of the 2.2 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, 1.9 million, or nearly 85 per cent of the population, were estimated to be internally displaced. According to the World Health Organization, out of Gaza’s thirty-six hospitals only thirteen were partially functional. There was an electricity blackout and warnings of famine. The UN Secretary-General reported to the UN Security Council that the ‘people of Gaza are in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world.’ While acknowledging Israel’s right to self-defence, even close allies like Germany spoke of ‘unspeakable conditions’ in Gaza, called for humanitarian pauses in the fighting, and urged Israel to ‘resort to less intensive warfare’. (more…)

Published: 30 October 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

In response to Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attack against Israel on 7 October 2023, in which more than 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, were brutally killed, more than 5,300 wounded, and some 230 abducted to the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) bombed Hamas targets in Gaza and, on 9 October 2023, declared a total siege of the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that ‘[t]here will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.’ Hamas, nevertheless, continued to fire rockets indiscriminately towards Israel. By 13 October 2023, Israeli airstrikes had killed some 1,800 Palestinians, including some 580 children, and injured about 7,300. In addition, some 423,000 civilians were displaced within the Gaza Strip due to the military strikes. Against the background of an impending humanitarian catastrophe, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for ‘pauses in the fighting’ to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. On 13 October 2023, the Russian Federation put forward a draft resolution for consideration by the Security Council, which called for ‘an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire’. On 18 October 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres joined the call for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space … to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing.’ (more…)

Published: 23 October 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 7 October 2023, a Jewish Sabbath day, Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups indiscriminately fired between 3,000–5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israel while, at the same time, more than 1,000 Hamas militants breached Israel’s heavily fortified security fence surrounding the territory to launch unprecedented attacks in multiple locations in Israel. Hamas fighters indiscriminately killed and injured Israeli security forces and civilians, including some 260 people attending a music festival in southern Israel. Some 1,300 Israelis, including many women and children, were killed and more than 3,000 injured – the largest number of Jewish victims in a single day since the holocaust. In addition, Hamas abducted some 200 Israelis to the Gaza Strip where they were kept as hostages. These despicable actions of Hamas constituted egregious violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. (more…)

Published: 04 October 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 23 May 2021, Ryanair Flight FR4978, a commercial passenger aircraft flying from Greece to Lithuania, was diverted by Belarusian air traffic control under the pretext of a bomb threat to Minsk Airport while passing through the airspace of the Republic of Belarus. Upon landing, the Belarusian authorities arrested two passengers on board – Belarusian blogger and political activist Roman Protasevich and his then partner Sofia Sapega – on charges of inciting unrest against the government of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Protasevich was a co-founder and editor of the Telegram messaging application Nexta, which played a key role in the massive protests against President Lukashenko after the rigged presidential elections in August 2020. After having been placed under house arrest for almost two years, Protasevich was sentenced on 3 May 2023 to eight years in prison for organising mass riots, preparing public disorder and creating or leading an extremist group. Sapega had earlier been sentenced to six years. Both were later pardoned by President Lukashenko. (more…)

Published: 21 September 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

The Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) was formally adopted by an intergovernmental conference convened by the UN General Assembly in New York on 19 June 2023. (more…)

Published: 21 September 2023  Author: Stefan Talmon

On 19 September 2023, some three years after an all-out war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh – an ethnic Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan – Azerbaijan began military operations against what it called ‘illegal Armenian armed groups’ in Nagorno-Karabakh. Tensions had been building around the region for months after Azerbaijani troops blockaded the Lachin corridor, cutting off the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The tensions had given rise to a flurry of peace talks between the conflicting parties in Washington, Brussels and Moscow. (more…)

Published: 5 September 2023 Author: Stefan Talmon

Despite the fact that ‘Palestine’ was accorded non-member observer State status in the United Nations in 2012, enjoyed bilateral recognition from 139 States, and acceded to numerous multilateral treaties, Germany did not recognize a State of Palestine. German courts also regularly ruled that there was no Palestinian State and no Palestinian nationality. In an order of 19 January 2022, the Higher Regional Court of Berlin accepted for the first time ‘Palestine’ as a State of origin and – albeit indirectly – a Palestinian nationality for the limited purposes of private international law. (more…)

Published: 31 August 2023 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 15 July 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan), announced the signing of an air services agreement between Taiwan and Germany. The signing ceremony was conducted in a hybrid format. The document was signed at the Ministry of Transportation and Communication in Taipei by the Director General of the German Institute Taipei, Germany’s representation on the island. The signing was witnessed by the Minister of Transport and Communication and the Director-General of the Europe Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Parliamentary Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Steffen Bilger, delivered a congratulatory message via a prerecorded video. At the same time, the document was signed at the Taipei Representative Office in Berlin by Taiwan’s representative in Germany who was connected via video link. The agreement took effect immediately. (more…)