On March 6, 2018, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or Court) rendered its judgment in Slowakische Republic (Slovak Republic) v. Achmea B.V. (Achmea decision) in response to the German Federal Court of Justice's (Bundesgerichtshof) request for a preliminary ruling. Deciding for the first time on the compatibility of the arbitration provision in bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with European Union (EU) law, the Court concluded that the investor-state arbitration clause in the Dutch-Slovak BIT was incompatible with EU law because it violated the principle of autonomy. The Court will soon respond to Belgium's request for an Opinion on the Canada-EU free trade agreement (FTA), where it will rule on the compatibility of extra-EU investment agreements with EU law.

On November 29, 2017, North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile that North Korean officials claim can deliver a nuclear warhead to any city in the United States. According to North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, the missile launch “finally realised” the nation's ambition “of completing the state nuclear force, the cause of building a rocket power.” At the same time, U.S. officials have reiterated that “[t]he United States does not accept a nuclear North Korea.” As a result, North Korea's fast-expanding nuclear weapons program has exacerbated the already fraught relations between the two countries.

The exclusion of transnational human rights litigation from U.S. federal courts is, for most practical purposes, now complete. On April 24, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 5–4 ruling in Jesner v. Arab Bank, deciding that foreign corporations cannot be sued under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).

While many women have profited from the relatively recent rights-revolution in Latin America, their pregnant sisters have apparently had to sit in the back of the bus or stay off altogether. Even modest progress on abortion entitlements has come at a high price and slow pace, perhaps due to the opposition of an alliance of long-established and up-and-coming religious groups. On a positive note, however, the struggle for emancipation on this front seems to be moving forward. In Chile, the Constitutional Court's (or Tribunal's) opinion of August 28, 2017, STC 3729/2017, which generally upholds a legislative bill allowing a woman to abort in the face of risk to life, lethal prenatal pathology, or rape, provides a case in point. Significantly, it also expands the statutory category of conscientious objectors to include non-professional staff and institutions.

The case against Jean-Pierre Bemba, Aimé Kilolo Musamba, Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo, Fidèle Babala Wandu, and Narcisse Arido is the first case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) dealing with offenses against administration of justice. The case is exceptional in terms of scope and size in comparison to other international prosecutions dealing with this kind of offense. The charges concern a systematic scheme aimed at producing false testimony of a large number of witnesses. Five people, including members of a defense team in another case before the ICC, carried out this operation over a period of many years. The case also involves several interesting evidentiary and procedural issues, including the overall regime for admission of evidence before the ICC.

In Google v. Equustek, the Supreme Court of Canada ordered Google to delist all websites used by Datalink, a company that stole trade secrets from Equustek, a Canada-based information technology company. Google had agreed to do so in part, but with respect to searches that originated from google.ca only, the default browser for those in Canada. Equustek however, argued the takedowns needed to be global in order to be effective. It thus sought an injunction ordering Google to delist the allegedly infringing websites from all of Google's search engines—whether accessed from google.ca, google.com, or any other entry point. Google objected. The Canadian Supreme Court, along with the two lower Canadian courts that considered the issue, sided with Equustek (para. 54). The ruling sets up a potential showdown between Canadian and U.S. law and raises critically important questions about the appropriate geographic and substantive scope of takedown orders, the future of free speech online, and the role of intermediaries such as Google in preventing economic and other harms.

Should trees have standing? The decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) in its Question of Compensation (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua) case of February 2, 2018 provides a pioneering example of damage to the environment being litigated before an international tribunal. The judgment is the first time that the ICJ has adjudicated compensation for environmental damage, and it is only the third time the ICJ has awarded compensation at all. Nevertheless, the ICJ boldly asserted in this case that “damage to the environment, and the consequent impairment or loss of the ability of the environment to provide goods and services, is compensable under international law” (para. 42). That said, the reasoning employed by the Court leaves much to be desired. Given the increasing number of cases involving the environment, it is unfortunate that international courts and tribunals will garner only limited guidance from the methodology adopted by the ICJ in valuing environmental damage.

Effective October 12, 2017, the United States lifted a number of long-standing sanctions on Sudan. This decision reflects the U.S. view that Sudan has made “sustained positive actions” with respect to ongoing conflicts, humanitarian access, and cooperation with the United States.

During the summer of 2018, U.S. diplomacy related to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Russia took sharp twists and turns. President Trump's statements at a pair of diplomatic events abroad in July sowed confusion regarding the continued U.S. commitment to NATO and the nature of the relationship between the White House and the Kremlin. Yet despite some wariness regarding NATO and a desire to have “a very good relationship with Russia,” Trump joined a robust NATO summit declaration that emphasized Russian malfeasance and reaffirmed the importance of the North Atlantic Alliance. Several weeks later, the U.S. State Department announced the imposition of new sanctions on Russia pursuant to the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991.

On August 24, 2017, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13,808, imposing economic sanctions on Venezuela. Trump issued the order not long after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro convened an election to assemble a new Constituent Assembly that would have the power to rewrite the Venezuelan constitution. The sanctions prohibit U.S. individuals and entities from dealing in most transactions in new debt and equity with the government of Venezuela and its state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA), but do not prohibit the import of Venezuelan oil.

Despite the passage of several statutory deadlines, by February 2018 the Trump administration had imposed no Russia-related sanctions pursuant to certain provisions of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), suggesting at one point that the threat of sanctions alone would be sufficient to deter further malfeasance. Then, on March 15, 2018, more than five months after the passage of an initial statutory deadline, the Trump administration announced that it would impose sanctions on five entities and nineteen individuals for their involvement in “malign” cyber activities on behalf of the Russian government.

In its advisory opinion, OC-24/17 (Advisory Opinion), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR or Court) addressed globally debated issues concerning gender identity, same-sex relationships, and the rights of LGBTI persons. As discussed below, the Court reached conclusions more progressive than those of its European counterpart, due to its finding that the principle of individual autonomy is embedded in the foundations of human rights law and permeates individual self-determination, the free development of one's personality, and the protection of different models of the family. In line with an apparent trend in the Court's case law, the Advisory Opinion rejects the idea that domestic societies are sometimes entitled, by virtue of a margin of appreciation, to choose among different possibilities for protecting human rights, provided that certain international legal limits are observed—an idea addressed in the dissenting opinion.

On March 22, 2018, Congress passed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that President Trump signed into law the following day, thus narrowly avoiding a government shutdown. Included within the voluminous bill is the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, which enhances both the United States’ and foreign nations’ access to cross-border electronic data for law enforcement purposes.

President Trump signed the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act on January 19, 2018, reauthorizing the mass surveillance provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) through December 31, 2023. The Act renewed Title VII of FISA and most notably its Section 702, which provides for the surveillance of foreign targets located outside the United States. The six-year reauthorization faced opposition from lawmakers and advocates concerned for Americans’ privacy interests, although Trump “would have preferred a permanent reauthorization of Title VII to protect the safety and security of the Nation.”

On October 12, 2017, the United States announced its intent to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), citing “concerns with mounting arrears …, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias.” The United States will remain a full UNESCO member until December 31, 2018, when the withdrawal becomes effective. Thereafter, it will continue to engage with UNESCO as a non-member observer state.

On June 26, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Trump's most recent iteration of restrictions on entry to the United States by nationals from certain foreign countries. Following several rewrites of this travel ban, ensuing legal challenges, and lower court injunctions, the Court, in a five-to-four decision authored by Chief Justice Roberts, reversed the latest ruling of a lower court that had granted a partial preliminary injunction against the ban. Although acknowledging that there was considerable evidence tying the travel ban to bias against Muslims, the Supreme Court found that the plaintiffs were nonetheless unlikely to succeed either in their statutory claim that Trump lacked the authority to impose this ban or in their constitutional claim that the ban violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Court accordingly reversed the lower court's injunction and remanded the case for further proceedings. The ruling, based on the Trump administration's asserted national security interest, leaves in place travel restrictions imposed on nationals of seven countries—Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen—only two of which are not Muslim-majority countries.

During the spring of 2018, the Trump administration expelled sixty Russian intelligence officers and diplomats and also imposed sanctions against various Russian individuals and companies. These actions responded to a range of actions attributed to Russia, including a poisoning on U.K. soil, its efforts to destabilize Ukraine, its support of the Assad regime in Syria, and various cyber activities.

On June 19, 2018, the United States withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council. Announcing this decision, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley characterized the Council as “a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo observed that while “the United States has no opposition in principle to multilateral bodies working to protect human rights,” nonetheless “when organizations undermine our national interests and our allies, we will not be complicit.” The withdrawal occurred one day after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the United States in a speech at the Human Rights Council for its “unconscionable” practice of forcibly separating undocumented families entering the United States. In August, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton stated that in addition to withdrawing from the Council, the United States would also reduce its assessed contribution to the United Nations by the amount that would ordinarily flow to the Human Rights Council and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

On December 6, 2017, President Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital city. This decision reflects Trump's “new approach to conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

On December 4, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the most recent version of President Trump's executive action restricting the entry of nationals from certain countries to take effect. The decision stayed nationwide injunctions granted by two federal district courts on constitutional and statutory grounds. This version of Trump's “travel ban,” (EO-3), issued on September 24, 2017, restricts the entry of nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen—all of whom had been restricted under previous orders—as well as North Korea, Venezuela, and Chad. While litigation continues in the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, the Trump administration fully implemented EO-3 by December 8.