The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the case of Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga held that a Trial Chamber, during the deliberations stage of trial proceedings, may, pursuant to Regulation 55 of the Regulations of the Court (Regulation 55), give notice of a possible modification of the legal characterization of the facts in its final Judgment, so long as the trial remains fair. This Introductory Note will provide background on the Katanga case and Regulation 55, summarize the Appeals Chamber’s Judgment, and discuss the implications of this ruling.

The North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States (NAFTA) entered into force on January 1, 1994. Chapter Eleven of NAFTA contains provisions governing investment protection and investor-state arbitration. In general, NAFTA provides investors of one of the parties protections for their investments in another NAFTA party, guaranteeing: treatment at least as good as that of host or third country investors (NAFTA articles 1102-1104); treatment in accordance with the minimum standards of customary international law (NAFTA article 1105); and compensation for expropriation (NAFTA article 1110). NAFTA article 1139 defines “investment” broadly but excludes contracts for the sale of goods or services. After meeting specified threshold requirements, such an investor has the right to international arbitration against the host state to vindicate these protections.

Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum is the United States Supreme Court’s second decision interpreting the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, which was enacted by the First Congress as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789. The ATS provides that federal district courts “shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Absent the ATS, such claims could only be brought in state, not federal, courts.

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), open for signature on June 3, 2013, is the first ever multilateral treaty on the global trade in conventional arms. It establishes common standards for the $40 billion legal international trade of weapons and seeks to reduce the illicit arms trade.

The election of the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General is governed by its Constitution in Article 31. Candidates must be appointed by the Health Assembly on the nomination of the Executive Board. Unlike other international organizations in which the decision-making process is largely informal—such as the IAEA and WTO—the WHO procedures were formalized in the 1990s to include: clear deadlines; an initial screening of all candidates; short-listing by secret ballot in case of more than five candidates; compulsory secret ballot voting both in the Board and the Assembly; and a limit of two terms of office of five years each. However, beginning in 2006, some regional groups strongly demanded the introduction of a compulsory rotation of the post of Director-General among the WHO’s regions. The equally strong rejection of that request by other regional groups led to an increasingly polarized debate in the governing bodies of the WHO.

On August 22, 2012, the Republic of Senegal and the African Union (AU) signed an agreement to create a tribunal within the Senegalese judicial system to prosecute the perpetrators of international law violations in Chad between 1982 and 1990. To be called the Extraordinary African Chambers (Chambers), the tribunal is the result of years of political and judicial bargaining around Hissein Habré, the former President of Chad. The Chambers were inaugurated in February 2013, following the agreement upon a Statute of the Chambers in January 2013. On July 2, 2013, Hissein Habré was charged with crimes against humanity, torture, and war crimes, and placed in pre-trial detention. To date, Habré is the only indictee, but the Prosecutor reportedly intends to seek the indictment of five officials of Habré’s administration suspected of having committed international crimes.

For more than four decades, those who supported the creation of a single patent regime with European-wide legal effects must have felt a lot like Sisyphus, struggling pointlessly towards an unreachable goal. This may be about to change in light of the adoption of the “unitary patent package” by the European Union (EU), provided the thirteen Member States (including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) ultimately ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA).