On August 31, 2020, an arbitral tribunal sitting in the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) rendered its final award in Güriş Construction & Engineering, Inc. v. Syrian Arab Republic (Güriş). The tribunal held that the Respondent had breached its obligations under the Agreement Between the Republic of Turkey and the Syrian Arab Republic Concerning the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments (the Turkey–Syria BIT).

One of the many implications of the measures taken to contain the spread of the COVID-19 crisis was the potential limitation of citizens to participate in their governments, namely through free, fair, and transparent elections. Recognizing the risks this would pose to political stability and governmental legitimacy in Africa, the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) submitted a Request for an Advisory Opinion to the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights (the Court) on the right of citizens to participate in the government of their country in the context of an election during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Court's Opinion was that the decision to conduct or postpone elections was a matter of domestic law, but that any such decision had to comply with regional and international standards on restriction and suspension of rights during emergencies.

Only parties to the ACHR may elect judges to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the Court) and participate in the development of the jurisprudence of the Court, which to date comprises approximately 450 judgments. An unintended consequence of the lack of English-speaking judges on the Court, given the Court's limited resources, is a time lag in the translation of the Court's judgments into English. The Court's press release of October 6, 2021 indicated that, thanks to the assistance of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Court was able to have seven of its judgments translated into English. The judgment in the case of Paola Guzmán Albarracín et al. v. Ecuador, issued on June 24, 2020, the subject matter of this introductory note, is one of the seven cases recently translated.

On April 8, 2021, the Grand Chamber of European Court of Human Rights delivered an eagerly awaited judgment in the case of Vavřička and Others v. The Czech Republic. It addressed the question of mandatory vaccination in the light of the right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

On October 6, 2021, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) handed down Opinion 1/19 on the conclusion of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). Based on a request by the European Parliament, the Opinion was rendered under Article 218(11) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which enables the Court to rule on the compatibility with EU law of international agreements envisaged, but not yet concluded, by the Union. The Opinion is about, on the one hand, the legal basis under the EU Treaties and, on the other hand, the procedure pursuant to which the EU and its member states may conclude the Convention.

On June 13, 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a judgment in Fedotova and Others v. Russia. The ECtHR found that Russia was in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for not allowing same-sex couples to have their partnerships legally recognized. The decision reflects the ECtHR's firm position: the formal recognition of partnership shall not depend on the partners' sex, and the complete exclusion of same-sex couples cannot be justified with opposing public sentiments or the need to protect traditional families. While the Fedotova ruling is the first judgment that challenged the discriminatory legislative framework in a country belonging to the Eastern Bloc of the Council of Europe, it is not unprecedented. In its judgment, the ECtHR applied the standards entrenched in the case law on the rights of same-sex partners and, although it did not address the issue of marriage equality under Article 12 of the ECHR, it did conclude that the applicants' rights under Article 8 had been violated.

On December 4, 2020, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (the Court) issued an advisory opinion on the compatibility of vagrancy laws with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Charter), the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (Children's Rights Charter), and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Protocol on Women's Rights). In this landmark advisory opinion, the Court considered an important social issue on the African continent.

Since January 23, 2019, several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have recognized the speaker of the Venezuela National Assembly, deputy Juan Guaidó, as interim president until free and fair presidential elections are called. That recognition was a consequence of the repudiation of the 2018 presidential election, in which the incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, was fraudulently proclaimed president for the term that began on January 10, 2019. A few days later, on February 6, 2019, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved a special law, the Statute that Governs the Transition to Democracy to Restore the Enforcement of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (the Transition Statute). The primary purpose of the Transition Statute was to regulate the exercise of the presidency by the speaker of the National Assembly acting as interim president, based on Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution.

Since its inception, the internet has challenged many basic principles of international copyright law. While some key “digital copyright” issues have been addressed in multilateral treaties, one of the most vexing issues with the global digital network remains—the question of the responsibility of third-party intermediaries for copyright infringements by internet users.

On February 14, 2022, an ad hoc division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued its decision in the case involving Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva. Valieva was suspended from participation in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games after the detection of a banned substance in her blood. The suspension was lifted by a decision issued by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee on February 9, 2022, allowing her to continue in the Olympics. The applicants (the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency, and the International Skating Union) challenged the lifting of the suspension. The CAS denied the applicants' challenge and allowed Valieva to participate in the Games. The CAS held that because Valieva is under the age of 16, she is considered a “protected person” under the World Anti-Doping Code and as such, should be sanctioned to a lesser degree than someone of age. In addition, because the positive sample was taken before the Winter Olympics, and she had not tested positive during the Games themselves, preventing her from participating in the Winter Games would cause “irreparable harm.” In addition, the 44-day delay in reporting her adverse test results should not be held against her to her detriment, particularly in consideration of the fact that the substance detected in the sample was “extremely low” and its performance-enhancing effects have not been proven. The World Anti-Doping Agency expressed its disappointment in the decision, noting that the World Anti-Doping Code does not permit “specific exceptions to be made in relation to mandatory provisional suspensions for ‘protected persons.’”

The issue of how a government comes to power generally falls within the domestic domain and is not a concern of international law. However, the African Union (AU, established 2002), like its predecessor the Organisation for African Unity (OAU, 1963–2002), views coups as significant threats to the peace, security, stability, and development of African states. To shape change, the AU codified the anti-coup policy that the OAU had progressively adopted from 1997, and broadened it into a normative framework.

On October 26, 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its judgment in Case C-109/20 Poland v. PL Holdings. The case concerned an arbitral award issued in favor of PL Holdings against Poland. The arbitration clause which served as the basis for resolving the parties’ dispute is contained in a 2017 bilateral investment treaty between Poland and the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU BIT). One year after the award was made, the CJEU ruled in Achmea that intra-EU investor-state arbitration clauses in treaties between EU member states are incompatible with EU law. The Court conversely held that commercial arbitration was compatible with EU law because it is an expression of the will of the parties, rather than a consequence of a treaty between states. Poland used Achmea to argue against the arbitral tribunal's jurisdiction, but the objection was considered by the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce to have been registered too late and Poland was ordered to pay damages to PL Holdings. Poland then brought an action before the Svea Court of Appeal (Svea hovrätt) to set aside the award, based on the invalidity under EU law of the arbitration clause in the BLEU BIT. Though the Swedish court accepted that, based on Achmea, the clause was invalid, it held that Poland's late objection to the jurisdiction of the tribunal and subsequent arbitration with PL Holdings meant that an ad hoc arbitration agreement had been established between the parties that was not precluded by Achmea and thus, the Court denied Poland's request to set aside the award. Poland appealed to the Supreme Court of Sweden (Högsta domstolen), which requested a preliminary ruling from the CJEU as to whether “Articles 267 and 344 TFEU precluded the conclusion of an ad hoc arbitration agreement between the parties to the dispute where the content of that agreement is identical to an arbitration clause that is set out in the BIT and is contrary to EU law.” The CJEU answered this question in the affirmative.

On January 28, 2021, the German Federal Court of Justice, or Bundesgerichtshof (BGH), Germany's highest court of ordinary jurisdiction, delivered its judgment in Case 3 StR 564/19 pertaining to questions of universal jurisdiction over international crimes and the extent to which foreign soldiers would be barred from prosecution in Germany based on claims of (functional) immunity for war crimes committed abroad. The decision strikes at the heart of a debate where such exceptions to immunity (ratione materiae) are yet to be uniformly agreed upon at an international level; it also comes on the verge of a number of related judgments that are pending both in German and other European courts. In the present case, the BGH held that according to the general rules of international law, criminal prosecution in Germany for war crimes committed abroad would not be precluded based on the notion of functional immunity, “when the acts have been committed by a foreign, lower-ranking defendant in the exercise of foreign sovereign activity.” Neither the BGH nor Germany's supreme guardian of the “Basic Law,” the Federal Constitutional Court, or Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG), has previously pronounced itself on questions of functional immunity in criminal proceedings.

On Tuesday, September 14, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) affirmed the April decision of Pre-Trial Chamber II permitting victims to participate in the trial of Mahamat Said Abdel Kani. According to a press release from the Court, the "Appeals Chamber found that the approach adopted by the Pre-Trial Chamber for transmitting victims' applications for participation to the parties and admitting victims to participate in the proceedings is in principle an adequate tool to ensure the fairness and expeditiousness of the proceedings, while at the same time respecting the rights of both the suspect/accused and the victims." Mr. Said is suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in Bangui in the Central African Republic in 2013. The opening of the confirmation of charges in his case will take place on October 12.

On August 6, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued its judgment in Scalin. The case involved descendants of Jewish people in France who were sent to concentration camps on trains operated by the defendant railroad company. The descendants sued the railroad for personal property stolen by the railroad workers an given to the Nazis, arguing that the expropriation exception in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) for cases applied and that therefore, the case could be heard by U.S. courts. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that the plaintiff descendants should pursue their complaint within the French administrative claims framework set up specifically to compensate victims of the Nazi regime. The district court relied on precedent permitting U.S. courts to abstain in favor of compensation systems based in the state where the harm occurred. In the meantime, the DC District Court disagreed with that precedent, holding that abstention is never proper and the Seventh Circuit suspended the appeal while the Supreme Court considered the Philipp case. After that judgment, the plaintiffs in this case asked the Court to remand the case to the district court so that the district court could determine whether any of the plaintiffs' predecessors in interest were not French citizens at the time the property was taken. The Court opined that a remand of this nature would omit consideration of the essential question in this case: “what is the plaintiffs' claim in the first place?” The Court noted that this “is a triple-foreign suit: plaintiffs allege that nationals of a country other than the United States were injured by a foreign entity (SNCF) in a foreign nation (France).” Although one of the plaintiffs is a U.S. citizen, the case nonetheless involves a foreign claim.