On August 23, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in Mitchell v. U.S., denying a certificate of appealability to the petitioner who sought a motion to vacate his conviction and sentence of death. The petitioner, Lezmond Mitchell, argued that his conviction and sentence must be vacated in light of an August 12, 2020, report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that concluded that Mr. Mitchell's trial and sentence were a violation of his rights under the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. Mr. Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row, argued that the IACHR report created rights binding on the U.S. “‘(1) because they are derived directly from the OAS Charter, a treaty within the meaning of the U.S. Constitution; and (2) because they are derived, through the OAS Charter, from the American Declaration, a statement of human rights norms the United States has not only adopted, but helped to draft.’” The Ninth Circuit concluded that Mr. Mitchell's motion to vacate “did not make ‘a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right’” under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) and denied his motion. In its reasoning, the Court explained that “reasonable jurists would not find debatable the district court's conclusion that the IACHR's decision is not binding in federal court.” It agreed with the District Court's conclusion that IACHR rulings are not binding on the U.S. because the OAS Charter is “not self-executing” and there is no U.S. statute which implements it. Moreover, the District Court correctly determined that because the American Declaration is not a treaty, it creates no binding legal obligations, nor does the “IACHR's governing statute, the Statute of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights . . . give the IACHR power to make binding rulings with respect to nations, like the United States, that have not ratified the American Convention.” The Ninth Circuit thus joins the other federal courts of appeals that have addressed this issue by concluding that neither the American Declaration, nor the IACHR's recommendations related thereto, is a source of binding obligations for the United States under international law. Cf. Cardenas v. Stephens, 820 F.3d 197, 203 (5th Cir. 2016); Tamayo v. Stephens, 740 F.3d 991, 997–98 (5th Cir. 2014); Flores-Nova v. Attorney Gen. of U.S., 652 F.3d 488, 493 (3d Cir. 2011); Igartua v. United States, 626 F.3d 592, 603 n. 11 (1st Cir. 2010); In re Hicks, 375 F.3d 1237, 1241 n. 2 (11th Cir. 2004); Garza v. Lappin, 253 F.3d 918, 925 (7th Cir. 2001); Roach v. Aiken, 781 F.2d 379, 381 (4th Cir. 1986).

On April 12, 2019, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a decision pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute of the ICC (Rome Statute) refusing to authorize an investigation into the situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (the Decision).

On November 1 and 2, 2018, the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations (the Committee) adopted views pursuant to Article 5(4) of the Optional Protocol in the cases of Sanila-Aikio v. Finland and Klemetti Käkkäläjärvi et al. In respect of both communications, the Committee considered that the interpretation made by the Finland Supreme Administrative Court (the Court), of who was eligible to be a member of the Sami Parliament's electoral roll, violated Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the Covenant), read alone and in conjunction with Article 27, and in light of Article 1.

On November 16, 2018, the Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) rendered the judgment in Case 002/02 against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. The full written version of the judgment was notified in Khmer, English, and French on March 28, 2019. The Chamber found Nuon and Khieu guilty of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national, and racial group. The Chamber additionally convicted Nuon of genocide of the Cham ethnic and religious group under the doctrine of superior responsibility. Both Nuon and Khieu were sentenced to life imprisonment.

On October 15, 2019, a Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its judgment in case C-128/18 Dumitru-Tudor Dorobantu, a case concerning the interpretation of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of June 13, 2002, on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States, as amended by Council Framework Decision 2009/299/JHA of February 26, 2009. Article 4 of the Charter provides for the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and, under Article. Article 4 of the Charter is to have the same meaning and scope as Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case involved the issuance of an arrest warrant for Mr. Dorobantu by a Romanian judicial authority to German authorities, as Mr. Dorobantu resided in Hamburg. Prior to executing the warrant, the German court referred a number of questions to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling concerning material conditions of detention and how to assess whether such conditions comply with EU fundamental rights guarantees. The CJEU ruled effectively that requested judicial authorities must suspend execution of an arrest warrant until they have been provided with sufficient evidence to demonstrate whether or not the fundamental rights of the person in question are in actual danger of being infringed.

On August 8, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Bakalian v. Central Bank of Republic of Turkey, Case No. 13-55664. In this case, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims seeking compensation from the Republic of Turkey and two Turkish national banks for lands that they claim were unlawfully confiscated from their ancestors during what the Court refers to as the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1923. In 2006, California adopted a statute extending the statute of limitations for claims arising out of the Armenian Genocide to December 31, 2016. Thus, the claims filed by the plaintiffs in 2010 were not time-barred under the statute; however, the panel found that since the Court had previously found the statute to be unconstitutional, no statute existed to extend the statute of limitations and therefore the claims were time-barred. The panel held that since the claims were plainly time-barred, the Court need not address legal questions posed regarding Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act jurisdiction.