President Guido Raimondi, the president of the European Court of Human Rights (European Court), in his address on January 25, 2019, at the opening of the Court's judicial year, singled out the case of Molla Sali v. Greece, concerning the application of Sharia law by the Greek courts, as one of the leading judgments of 2018. The judgment, he noted, gave rise to erroneous interpretations, with some commentators suggesting that the Court wanted to pave the way for the application of Sharia law in Europe, when in his view, the judgment leads to precisely the opposite conclusion.

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.

In June 2015, President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir of Sudan attended a meeting of the African Union (AU) in Johannesburg, South Africa, despite the fact that a warrant had been issued for his arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the Darfur region. Although South Africa, a party to the ICC, was obliged to arrest Al Bashir and surrender him to the ICC under the terms of the Rome Statute of the ICC, the South African government made no attempt to apprehend him. On the application of a South African public interest law firm, the North Gauteng High Court ordered that the government was required by law to arrest and detain Al Bashir. Al Bashir was, however, allowed to leave South Africa.

On June 10, 2022, by consensus, the International Labour Conference (ILC) adopted a resolution amending the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work to encompass “a safe and healthy working environment.” Under this Declaration, adopted in 1998, all 187 member states of the International Labour Organization (ILO) have an obligation, arising from their membership, “to respect, promote and realize … the principles concerning the fundamental rights” that are the subject of ILO Conventions recognized as fundamental. The other four fundamental categories are freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor, the effective abolition of child labor, and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

On May 11, 2018, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Court) delivered a judgment against Mali concerning its Persons and Family Code (Family Code). This case is groundbreaking because it is the first time that the African Court has found violations of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (African Children's Charter).

On June 6, 2018, the International Court of Justice (Court) rendered a judgment on preliminary objections in the case of Immunities and Criminal Proceedings (Equatorial Guinea v. France). France had made three preliminary objections: two related to the Court's jurisdiction on the basis of, respectively, United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Convention) and the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Protection (VCDR) concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes (Optional Protocol), and the third challenged admissibility for abuse of process and abuse of rights. The Court accepted the first objection regarding jurisdiction on the basis of the Palermo Convention and rejected the other two. This judgment is an important contribution to the development of international law, both regarding the particular instruments at issue and broader questions of law of treaties and international dispute settlement.

On December 11, 2020, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) delivered by majority its judgment on the merits of the litigation between Equatorial Guinea and France concerning the legal status of a building at 42 Avenue Foch, situated in Paris, in the very elegant 16th district, close to the Arc de Triomphe (Place de l'Étoile/Place Charles de Gaulle).

Participants have approved 25 schedules; the share of world trade in information represented in the 25 schedules is more than 92 percent; the schedule of concessions should be released through the internet.