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On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the International Court of Justice, a virtual tour of the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court, is now available here .  The President of the Court, H.E. Judge Joan E. Donoghue, delivered a video message to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Court. Watch it here The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946. The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located in New York (United States of America). The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. The Court is composed of 15 judges,

ECJ - Judgment in Case C-505/19 WS v Bundesrepublik Deutschland (12.5.2021): The principle prohibiting the duplication of proceedings can preclude the arrest, within the Schengen Area and the European Union, of a person who is the subject of an Interpol notice. This is the case where the competent authorities are aware of a final judicial decision, taken in a State that is a party to the Schengen Agreement or a Member State, which establishes that that principle applies. In 2012, the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) published, at the request of the United States and on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the authorities of that country, a red notice in respect of WS, a German national, with a view to his potential extradition. Where a person who is the subject of such a notice is located in a State affiliated to Interpol, that State must, in principle, provisionally arrest that person or monitor or restrict his or her movements. However, even before that

By Giorgos Kazoleas, Lawyer The positive impact of the application of the principle of effectiveness reflects a significant recent ruling by the European Court of Justice. The decision concerns immigration law and in particular the right of the asylum seeker to appeal against the decision rejecting his application. The ECJ considers that the applicant may rely on circumstances subsequent to the rejection in his appeal and that the national court should take them into account. According to the Judgment [1]  , it is for each Member State to lay down procedural rules for legal actions that would safeguard that effective judicial protection. The Court recalls that the Dublin III Regulation 4 provides that a person who is the subject of a transfer decision is to have the right to an effective remedy against that decision and that that remedy must cover, inter alia, the examination of the application of that regulation. According to article 27 of the Regulation  (EU) No 604/2013 [2]

The rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for follow-up to  Resolution 2362 (2021)  on "Restrictions on NGO activities in Council of Europe member States", Alexandra Louis (France, ALDE), has expressed concern over two new draft laws aimed at widening the scope of application of the Russian law of 23 May 2015 on "undesirable organisations". "The application of the law on ‘undesirable organisations’, criticised by the Venice Commission and the Assembly, has already led to the closure of some 30 international NGOs in the Russian Federation. It is all the more worrying that two new draft laws have recently been tabled in the State Duma to widen the scope of its application. If adopted, the implementation of new provisions of the law would further shrink the space for civil society in Russia. These new draft laws run counter to the recommendation made by the Assembly last January in its Resolution 2362 (2021), urging Council o

By Christina Poursanidou, Lawyer Following the financial crisis of 2009, most of the European countries in order to boost their weakened economies, have introduced policies, which allow foreign investors to make large and passive investments, in exchange of an easy (almost immediate) route to citizenship or residence of the investors. Such schemes are definitely not a new trend, since even from the 1980s UK and USA offered residence in exchange for sizable investments. Usually these policies are defined as Citizenship by Investment (CBI) or  Residency by Investment (RBI), “Golden Visas” or “Golden passports”. Undoubtedly,  such policies have a positive impact on the introducing country, but simultaneously could carry significant risk of economic crime. At that point, let’s discuss the intentions of the parties. On the one hand, the country introducing a golden passport policy aims at its economic growth. Basically, the country offers a passport in order to receive a huge investment fro

Protocol No. 15 to the European Convention on Human Rights brings significant amendments in Convention’s provisions. The ratification shall trigger into force of the Protocol as such, in respect of all the Council of Europe member States on 1 August 2021. This protocol brings some changes to the European Convention on Human Right’s provisions regarding the functioning of the European Court of Human Rights : Adding a reference to the principle of subsidiarity and the doctrine of the margin of appreciation to the Preamble of the Convention; Shortening from six to four months the time limit within which an application must be made to the Court; Amending the ‘significant disadvantage’ admissibility criterion to remove the second safeguard preventing rejection of an application that has not been duly considered by a domestic tribunal; Removing the right of the parties to a case to object to relinquishment of jurisdiction over it by a Chamber in favour of the Grand Chamber; Replacing t

A 37-year-old man will serve 2/3 of the total sentence of 60 days imposed on him by the District Criminal Court in Serres, Greece, because he did not wear a protection mask against coronavirus. In particular, the court, after finding him guilty of violating the measures to prevent infectious diseases, ordered that the accused man should serve 40 days in prison, while the rest of the sentence (20 days) was decided to be suspended. The case was tried with the "act of committing an offence" procedure, while as it became known, the man is said to have committed the same crime during the previous period. According to Article 100 of the new Greek Penal Code, if a person is sentenced to imprisonment for not more than three years, the court, if it deems it necessary to assess part of the deprivation of liberty in order to prevent him from committing other criminal acts, may order the execution of that part, the duration of which may not be less than ten days nor more than three month

In Chamber judgment on 13.4.2021 in the case of E.G. v. Republic of Moldova (application no. 37882/13) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights and a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private life).  The case concerned a sexual assault on the applicant in February 2008, and in particular the failure to enforce the sentence imposed on one of her three attackers. The offender in question had been granted an amnesty while the authorities were still looking for him and he had never served his sentence. The benefit of this amnesty had subsequently been annulled. However, the period of about one year during which he had benefited from the amnesty had enabled him to leave Moldova, shortly before the last annulment decision.  The Court found that the sexual assault on the applicant had constituted a serious breach of her right to protec