On February 27, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Jam v. International Finance Corp., a case of critical importance for international organizations. The question presented in Jam was whether U.S. law affords international organizations absolute immunity from suit in the United States, or whether international organizations instead are entitled to only the more limited or “restrictive” immunity that applies to foreign sovereigns under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

During the fall of 2019, the European Court of Justice (hereinafter the ECJ or the Court) delivered judgments in two cases addressing the responsibility of internet platform companies for the personal information they control. In Google LLC v. Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), the ECJ considered the geographic scope of its notable recent jurisprudence on the obligations of search engines to implement the “right to be forgotten” set forth in European Union (EU) data protection law. In Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v. Facebook Ireland Limited, the Court examined whether Facebook was obliged under EU law to remove information available on the social network that previously had been found under Austrian law to defame an Austrian politician.

On April 5, 2019, a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel (Panel) issued its decision in the dispute Russia – Measures Concerning Traffic in Transit. This decision is notable because it is the first instance in which a WTO panel has been called on to interpret the national security provision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994), Article XXI.

For the first time, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are dealing concurrently with the same set of events, which concern the violence to which those in the group that self-identifies as the Rohingya have been subjected in Myanmar, and that has prompted their mass exodus to Bangladesh. Before both courts, proceedings are at a preliminary stage.

On October 7, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision in In re del Valle Ruiz that significantly expands the ability of parties to foreign legal proceedings to obtain discovery from U.S. courts. The Second Circuit reached two key conclusions that work to expand the reach of discovery by American courts: first, that the reach of 28 U.S.C. section 1782 applies to the full limit of constitutional due process, and second, that there is no bar on the ability of U.S. courts to order the production of documents outside of the United States under section 1782.