On September 19, 2016, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a set of commitments to enhance the protection of refugees and migrants, known as the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. In the Declaration, all 193 member states of the United Nations reaffirmed the importance of the international protection regime and committed to strengthening and enhancing mechanisms to protect people on the move. They also agreed to work toward the adoption of a global compact on refugees and a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. These two compacts were drafted through separate processes over eighteen months in 2017–18 and formally adopted by the General Assembly in December 2018. One hundred and fifty-two states voted in favor of the adoption of the Migration Compact, while twelve countries abstained from the vote (Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Italy, Latvia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Romania, Singapore, and Switzerland), and five countries voted against (Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland, and the United States).

In 2014, the Asociación Profesional Élite Taxi (Elite Taxi) brought an action before the Juzgado de lo Mercantil No 3 de Barcelona (Commercial Court No. 3, Barcelona, Spain) for the infringement of the national law on taxi services and the carrying out of misleading practices and acts of unfair competition by Uber Systems Spain SL (Uber). The two parties in the main proceedings are Elite Taxi, a taxi drivers' association in Barcelona, and Uber, a company related to Uber Technologies Inc. In the proceedings, Uber argued that its smartphone app constituted only a technical platform and should be regulated as an “information society service,” subject to EU law. However, the court ruled against Uber and found that it was providing a “service in the field of transport,” making the company subject to the potentially more stringent regulations of individual EU member states.

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.

On April 14, 2018, Protocol 16 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms received sufficient ratifications and entered into force on August 1, 2018. The Protocol, for the first time, enabled the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to provide advisory opinions for the states that ratified the Protocol.

On March 20, 2019, the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals set aside Radovan Karadžić's prior sentence of forty years and imposed a life sentence. Karadžić was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws or customs of war in March 2016 by a Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and sentenced to forty years in prison. His crimes relate to war crimes he committed during the 1990s conflicts in the Balkans, in particular the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Serbs and the three-year long siege of Sarajevo. The Appeals Chamber reversed part of Karadžić's convictions related to the Overarching JCE and dismissed the rest of his appeal, while also dismissing most of the Prosecution's appeal, aside from the sentence. The Appeals Chamber judges found that the Trial Chamber “committed a discernible error and abused its discretion in imposing a sentence of only 40 years of imprisonment,” and consequently imposed a life sentence.

On April 10, 2019, the U.K. Supreme Court (UKSC) handed down judgment in the case of Vedanta Resources PLC and Another (Appellants) v. Lungowe and Others (Respondents). The case raises important issues regarding jurisdiction and the potential for a duty of care to be imposed on a parent company in respect of harm caused by its subsidiary. The UKSC has also made clear that a duty of care could be imposed in a nonequity relationship such as in relation to a company's supply chain.

On July 17, 2018, the Human Rights Committee, the monitoring body of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), rendered decisions in two similar cases brought by two French nationals against the French state. Both petitioners were Muslim women who challenged Act No. 2010-1192 of 11 October 2010, a French law under which wearing of the niqab, also known as a “full-face veil,” in public spaces is prohibited. These seminal cases constitute the first time that an international arbiter of human rights has ruled that France's face-veil ban violates the human rights of its citizens.

On November 27, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter the ECtHR or the Court) delivered a judgment in the case of Alekseyev and Others v. Russia. The judgment is one of the latest episodes in a series of applications launched by well-known Russian LGBT+ activist Nikolay Alekseyev. In the judgment, the Court unanimously found violations of several articles of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), including the right to nondiscrimination.

After twenty-two years of negotiations, in Aktau on August 12, 2018, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The preamble of the Convention stipulates, among other things, that the Convention, made up of twenty-four articles, was agreed on by the five states based on principles and norms of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law. The enclosed Caspian Sea is bordered by Iran, Russia, and three states that were established following dissolution of the Soviet Union, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.

In October 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) adopted General Comment 36 on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the guarantee of the right to life.

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) took an unusual step in issuing its “General Comment No. 24 on State Obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business activities.” Unlike most of CESCR's other General Comments, General Comment No. 24 does not tackle a specific right. Instead, it consolidates and elaborates the Committee's jurisprudence on states' obligations in the area of business and human rights, providing clarity on its approach to some of the most contentious issues within the field of business and human rights. This General Comment has the potential to have profound implications for the ongoing development of legal standards in the area of business and human rights, including implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP).

On July 25, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, the Court) rendered its judgment in the case C-528/16, Confédération paysanne and Others. It is a landmark decision in that the Court essentially decided that genome-edited organisms are “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) governed by the EU's regulatory framework on GMOs without exception.

On April 12, 2019, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) unanimously rejected the Prosecutor's request to open an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Afghanistan, determining that “an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan at this stage would not serve the interests of justice.” The Prosecution's request for an investigation concerns potential crimes that have taken place in the context of the armed conflict currently taking place in Afghanistan, including crimes against humanity by the Taliban and their affiliated Haqqani Network; war crimes by the Afghan National Security Forces; and war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan, as well as the CIA in secret detention facilities between 2003–2004. The Chamber found that the request establishes a reasonable basis to believe that crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC have been committed in Afghanistan and that the requirements of gravity and complementarity have been met. However, the Chamber determined that opening an investigation would not serve the interests of justice due to the elapsed time since opening the preliminary examination, the political changes that have taken place in Afghanistan since then, the lack of cooperation with Afghanistan authorities concerning the investigation, and the need for the Court to prioritize matters with a better chance of success.

On August 24, 2018, the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) released its report and recommendations on its review of the introduction from the sea of sei whales (Balaenoptera Borealis) by Japan. The report was prepared by the secretariat under CITES Article XIII for consideration at the 70th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee, which met in Sochi, Russian Federation, from October 1 to 5, 2018.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki signed a historic agreement on July 9, 2018, in Asmara, Eritrea, ending over two decades of open hostilities and war. The Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship (Joint Declaration) marks a fundamental change for the Horn of Africa, with the reconciliation possibly altering the economic and political dynamics of the region. The Joint Declaration resulted from several key developments occurring over a few weeks from June through early July 2018. Ethiopia announced its acceptance of the original Algiers Agreement, dated December 12, 2000, which had never been implemented, and its willingness to abide by the 2002 international Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) ruling that awarded disputed territory to Eritrea, including the border town of Badme. Previously, Ethiopia had rejected the ruling and asked for a new ruling. Ethiopia had also previously insisted that relations must be restored before any territorial resolution. President Afwerki agreed to negotiate, after stating for years that Ethiopia had to withdraw its troops from the disputed town of Badme first. A few weeks before the signing of the Joint Declaration, the Eritrean foreign minister visited Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, marking the first bilateral meeting between the two since the war began.

On September 2, 2019, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Appeals Chamber delivered its judgment in the Situation on the Registered Vessels of the Union of Comoros, the Hellenic Republic and the Kingdom of Cambodia case, Case No. ICC-01/13 OA 2, and rejected the appeal filed by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I's decision on the November 15, 2018 “Application for Judicial Review by the Government of the Union of Comoros.” As noted in the ICC's press release, “a referral was received by the Office of the Prosecutor from the authorities of the Union of the Comoros, a State Party to the Rome Statute, in relation to an attack on 31 May 2010 by the Israeli Defence Forces on the Humanitarian Aid Flotilla bound for the Gaza strip. On 6 November 2014, the Prosecutor issued her decision not to investigate the attack. On 16 July 2015, Pre-Trial Chamber I, by majority, requested the Prosecutor to reconsider the 6 November 2014 decision not to investigate the attack. Subsequently, on 29 November 2017 the Prosecutor filed her decision, which she considered to be final, reaffirming her previous decision not to investigate the attack. On 15 November 2018, Pre-Trial Chamber I directed the Prosecutor to reconsider her decision of 6 November 2014 not to investigate the attack in light of the specific directions of the Pre-Trial Chamber's 16 July 2015 decision. The Prosecutor then appealed this decision.” The Appeals Chamber confirmed the Pre-Trial Chamber's decision, directing that the OTP must reconsider its decision regarding the Comoros referral by December 2, 2019. The Appeals Chamber found that the Pre-Trial Chamber “did not err in reviewing whether a decision of a Prosecutor that she considered to be ‘final’ subsequently to a first request for reconsideration does actually amount … to a proper ‘final decision.’” The Appeals Chamber did maintain that the “ultimate decision” regarding whether or not to initiate an investigation remains with the OTP.

On May 15, 2019, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in R (Privacy International) v. Investigatory Powers Tribunal and others that that the extent of the U.K. government's power to hack into internet services is subject to judicial review. The case concerned whether the British Parliament was sufficiently clear in drafting an “ouster” clause in an attempt to keep the decisions of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which oversees challenges to the U.K. intelligence services, from review by other courts. It was instigated in the aftermath of Edward Snowden's disclosures of the U.K. government's bulk hacking techniques when Privacy International challenged them in the IPT. After the IPT sided with the government, Privacy International sought judicial review, and ultimately the Supreme Court determined that the language of the ouster clause was insufficiently clear, and consequently, the IPT is now subject to oversight by U.K. courts.

On November 13, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Levola Hengelo BV v. Smilde Foods BV that the taste of food cannot be classified as a “work” as referred to in Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament in order to be eligible for copyright protection. The case concerns Dutch food retailer Levola, which brought suit against a rival company, Smilde, when they began making a spreadable cream cheese dip with fresh herbs similar to their own and argued that Smilde infringed its copyright in the taste of the dip because the rival dip is a reproduction of their work. The Court noted that to be protected by copyright, the taste must be able to be classified as a “work,” which requires that the subject matter is an original intellectual creation and that there be an “expression” of the intellectual creation. The Court stated that “copyright protection may be granted to expressions, but not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such,” and that “the subject matter protected by copyright must be expressed in a manner which makes it identifiable with sufficient precision and objectivity.” The Court held that taste cannot be identified with precision and objectivity and “will be identified essentially on the basis of taste sensations and experiences, which are subjective and variable,” and so the taste of a food product cannot be classified as a “work” and is consequently not eligible for copyright protection under the Directive.