GPIL – German Practice in International Law

Published: 24 September 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. Its tasks include coordination, policy review, policy dialogue and making recommendations on economic, social, and environmental issues, as well as the implementation of the internationally agreed development goals. ECOSOC’s 54 members are elected for overlapping three-year-terms by a two-thirds majority of the members of the General Assembly present and voting. Members are elected directly and individually through a secret ballot. Seats are allotted based on geographical representation, with fourteen allocated to African States, eleven to Asian States, six to Eastern European States, ten to Latin American and Caribbean States, and thirteen to Western European and other States. Germany is part of the so-called “Western European and other States” group (WEOG). (more…)

Published: 22 September 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 2 January 2015, the State of Palestine deposited its instrument of accession to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) 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 that the Prosecutor investigate crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction which were “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.” (more…)

Published: 16 September 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 16 August 2015, Shayan Saeedpour killed a man in a street fight in Iran whilst under the influence of alcohol. At the time of the crime, he was only 17 years old and, according to human rights organisations, was receiving psychiatric treatment. A criminal court in Iran’s Kurdistan Province held him to be fully responsible for his acts and on 23 October 2018 sentenced him to death. The Iranian Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in February 2019. On 19 April 2020, Mr. Saeedpour’s lawyer was informed of his client’s imminent execution. (more…)

Published: 14 September 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 2 October 2020, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg rendered the first conviction for aiding and abetting a crime against humanity by enslavement. The Court sentenced the German and Tunisian citizen Omaima A. to three years and six months’ imprisonment for, inter alia, her involvement in the enslavement of a 13-year-old Yazidi girl. The verdict came some six years after the terrorist organisation “Islamic State” (IS) committed genocide against the Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority in northern Iraq. During the IS campaign in August 2014, some 200,000 Yazidis were driven from their homes and 50,000 fled for their lives to the Sinjar Mountains; 5,000 Yazidi men were killed and as many as 7,000 women and girls were enslaved. (more…)

Published: 09 September 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 23 August 2019, Tornike K., a former Chechen separatist fighter who had fled to Germany, was shot dead in broad daylight in an execution-style killing in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten park. The suspected killer, a Russian national, was arrested near the crime scene shortly after the crime and provisionally taken into custody. From the outset, Russian State involvement in the insidious murder was suspected. Once sufficient factual grounds emerged to suggest that the killing was carried out either on the order of the Russian State authorities or on those the Autonomous Chechen Republic, the Federal Public Prosecutor General took over the investigation on 4 December 2019. As a consequence, the Federal Government expelled two Russian diplomats. (more…)

Published: 06 September 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

For many years, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has conducted ballistic missile tests in violation of its obligations under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. In March 2020, North Korea launched a series of short-range missiles which on each occasion triggered a strong condemnation from Germany. (more…)

Published: 31 August 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

For more than a decade, Germany has been on a mission to integrate climate security concerns into the work of the UN Security Council. During its presidency of the Council in July 2011, the Council for the first time expressed ‘its concern that possible adverse effects of climate change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security’. The Council acknowledged that the security implications of climate change are sometimes be drivers of conflict, as well as representing a challenge to the implementation of its mandates or endangering the process of peace consolidation, and requested that the UN Secretary-General ensure his reporting to the Council contain contextual information on, inter alia, possible security implications of climate change. (more…)

Published: 27 August 2021 Authors: Stefan Talmon and Hannah Janknecht

In February 2014, in the wake of the Ukrainian revolution, Russian troops stationed in Crimea under an agreement between Russia and Ukraine left their military bases and took control of the peninsula. A pro-Russian government was installed which held a status referendum in which the majority ethnic Russian population voted overwhelmingly for the independence of Crimea and the accession to Russia. On 18 March 2014, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Crimean leaders signed a treaty of accession making Crimea and the port city of Sevastopol the 84^th and 85^th federal entities of the Russian Federation. (more…)

Published: 17 August 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 5 August 2021, the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (NJW), Germany’s preeminent general law journal, published a letter to the editor by two judges of the Federal Supreme Court concerning the second “Kunduz decision” of the Federal Constitutional Court. In its Order of 18 November 2020, the Constitutional Court did not admit for decision a constitutional complaint against the final judgment of the Federal Supreme Court of 6 October 2016 dismissing on points of law a claim for compensation for alleged violations of international humanitarian law by a German army officer in Afghanistan. (more…)

Published: 11 August 2021 Author: Stefan Talmon

On 1 August 2021, Germany became the 21^st contracting party of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on combating piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia (ReCAAP), a regional agreement to promote and enhance cooperation against piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia. ReCAAP was opened for signature on 11 November 2004 and entered into force on 4 September 2006. On 29 November 2006, the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre was established in Singapore which enhances regional cooperation in combatting piracy and armed robbery at sea through information sharing, capacity building and cooperative arrangements. In accordance with Article 18(5) of ReCAAP, Germany became a Contracting Party  60 days after depositing the instrument of accession with the depository, the Government of Singapore, on 2 June 2020. (more…)