The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) in Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary is remarkable both on account of its facts and the peculiar legal issues it raised. In 2004, an ax-wielding Azerbaijani army officer (R.S.) beheaded one Armenian officer, and attempted to kill another, while attending a NATO-organized English language course in Budapest, Hungary. R.S. was prosecuted in Hungary and given a life sentence. Eight years later, R.S. was transferred to Azerbaijan to serve the remainder of his sentence. However, upon his arrival, R.S. received a hero's welcome. He was released, pardoned, promoted, and awarded salary arrears for the period spent in prison, as well as the use of a state apartment in the capital. Many high-ranking Azerbaijani officials expressed their approval of R.S.'s conduct and pardon. (The long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan of course looms in the background of this story.)

In two nearly identical judgments dated July 14, 2020, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) reviewed a decision taken by the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in a dispute about aviation restrictions imposed on Qatar by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These cases represent the second time that the Court has heard an appeal concerning a decision of the ICAO Council, a treaty body which has executive, administrative, and dispute settlement functions. As in 1972, when the Court heard an appeal brought by India against Pakistan, the Court's 2020 judgments concern a Council decision on preliminary objections to jurisdiction and admissibility. These judgments not only reinforce the ICJ's findings in its 1972 judgment, which raised similar procedural issues, but they also highlight the scope and the limits of the Court's rare appellate function.

By a September 17, 2019 Order (Order), the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC or Court) rejected challenges to Germany's military involvement in anti-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) operations in Syria. This outcome was expected and was as such insignificant. What is significant is the FCC's reasoning. The Court used the Order to clarify the constitutional roles of parliament and the executive in German foreign affairs. And it included an intriguing pronouncement on the scope of Article 51 of the UN Charter, which adds a fresh perspective to the polarized debates about self-defense against nonstate actors.

In a judgment issued on June 6, 2019 (Judgment), the Colombian Constitutional Court (Court) examined the constitutionality of the Agreement for the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments between Colombia and France (Agreement). The Court upheld the constitutionality of the Agreement on the condition that the government adopt a joint interpretative statement with France to clarify some of its provisions and prevent interpretations contrary to the Colombian constitutional order. In doing so, the Court articulated a standard of review that takes into account the benefits and costs of international investment agreements (IIAs), the application of which entailed an insightful examination of the Agreement in light of the decisions of investment tribunals. The judgment raises significant issues of public international law, including the practical implications of conditioning ratification of the Agreement on adoption of a joint interpretative statement and the role of such statements in the interpretation of IIAs. Furthermore, the judgment makes important contributions to the ongoing process of reform of the investment treaty regime and the strategies adopted by states to counter the adverse impacts of IIAs on regulatory autonomy.

The July 2019 decision of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands constitutes the final act of a long litigation arising from the July 1995 genocide in Srebrenica. After Bosnian Serb militias attacked the safe area of Srebrenica, members of the Dutch battalion (Dutchbat), which was responsible for safeguarding the enclave under a UN mandate, permitted between 8,000 and 10,000 men and boys to be taken away by Bosnian Serb forces. Those men and boys were eventually killed by forces commanded by General Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, president of the autonomous Republika Srpska. This Supreme Court decision and related rulings involve issues of international responsibility for the conduct of peacekeepers—in particular, attribution of conduct to the United Nations and its member states and immunity of international organizations.

With Judgment No. 21995/2019 (the Judgment), the Italian Court of Cassation (Court of Cassation) once again tackled the limits of sovereign immunity with regard to crimes against humanity (para. 7). The Judgment is part of litigation originating in Greece with the Leivadia Tribunal's 1997 Distomo decision, confirmed in 2000 by the Areopago (Hellenic Supreme Court), which ordered Germany to pay compensation and legal costs of approximately 50 million euros to the relatives of 218 victims of the Distomo massacre committed by the German military in 1944. In this Judgment, the Court of Cassation addressed whether sovereign immunity blocked the seizure of German assets located in Italy as part of that compensation order. The Court of Cassation's decision is noteworthy because it takes the discussion on sovereign immunity from jurisdiction and crimes against humanity one step further by addressing, in particular, the question of compensation and attachment of claims and rights held by the debtor against third parties.

On May 21, 2020, a Tribunal established under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) rendered an Award regarding the 2012 Enrica Lexie incident, which involved the death of two Indian fishermen at the hands of Italian Marines. The Award is lengthy and wide-ranging, finding that: (1) Italy and India had concurrent jurisdiction over the incident; (2) the Tribunal had incidental jurisdiction to determine the immunity of the Italian Marines; (3) the Marines enjoyed immunity as state officials; but nevertheless that (4) India was entitled to compensation for the loss of life, physical harm, damage to property, and moral harm. The Award has been received more positively by Italy than India, but neither party has indicated that they intend to do anything other than comply with it.

On January 28, 2021, a Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) dismissed all of the respondent's preliminary objections in Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary Between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives). The proceeding arose out of Mauritius's long-running effort to regain sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, which was originally “detached” from Mauritius in 1965 by the United Kingdom (UK). Although the Judgment will allow the case to proceed to the merits, it is significant in its own right for its engagement with several earlier legal decisions, including the arbitral award in Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration and the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, as well as UN General Assembly Resolution 73/295 affirming the Advisory Opinion. The Special Chamber stitched together a series of legal documents that, considered individually, were either non-binding or limited in scope to achieve a determination greater than the sum of its parts—one that effectively resolved the disputed sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago.