On July 1, 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court or the Grand Chamber) delivered its judgment in the case of S.A.S. v. France pertaining to the legality of the French ban on wearing full-face veils in public, introduced by Law No. 2010-1192 of October 11, 2010. The decision comes on the heels of a number of related judgments in adjacent areas of dispute circumscribing the right to privacy and religion and delimiting the circumstances that may justify interference with such fundamental human rights. In the present case, the Court for the first time had to deal with a general ban on certain clothing that arguably, for those most affected, epitomizes the manifestation of their religion. Accepting the principle of “living together (le ‘vivre ensemble’)” as an inherent element of the “rights and freedoms of others” in the French context and conceding a wide margin of appreciation to the respondent state in preserving that principle, the Court found no violation of the applicant’s rights to respect for her private life (Article 8) and to freedom of religion (Article 9) under the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention).

The dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) brought in its wake massive bloodshed, as well as human rights violations not seen on the European continent since the end of the Second World War. It probed the boundaries of contemporary international law in numerous ways, including providing the first “field tests” of the doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” which may turn out to be the biggest challenge to the notion of state sovereignty posed in centuries.

On April 14, 2014, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (the Tribunal) rendered its Judgment in the case of the M/V Virginia G.. The judgment notably clarifies the scope of the sovereign rights of a coastal state with respect to living resources in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Despite long-running international efforts to end forced labor, including modern forms of slavery and human trafficking, it remains a prevalent occurrence throughout the world. The most recent data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) is disturbing. It discloses that at least 20.9 million people around the world are the victims of forced labor today.