Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T11:19:18.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Authority and Dialogue

State and Official Immunity in Domestic and International Courts

from 1 - International Law and Constitutional Law: Is There a Final Arbiter?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Chiara Giorgetti
Affiliation:
University of Richmond
Guglielmo Verdirame
Affiliation:
King's College London
Get access

Summary

States have taken different approaches to incorporating relevant jurisdictional immunities into their domestic legal systems. Some common law countries have adopted foreign state immunity acts that codify jurisdictional immunities as a matter of domestic law. Other civil law countries, such as Italy, apply rules of foreign state immunity based on customary international law more directly. At the same time, domestic courts have adjudicated disputes related to jurisdictional immunities by interpreting and applying their domestic laws against the backdrop of international law and the customary international law norms that govern the contours of foreign state and foreign official immunity. Assessing challenges brought before international tribunals to immunity determinations made by domestic courts in Europe is helpful, and specifically a challenge brought by individual claimants before the European Court of Human Rights to the United Kingdom’s determination that Saudi Arabia was entitled to jurisdictional immunity from civil claims for torture, and a challenge brought by Germany before the International Court of Justice to Italy’s determination that Germany did not enjoy jurisdictional immunity from civil claims for World War II–era crimes. Domestic courts in Canada and Italy subsequently considered these decisions in reaching their own conclusions about the scope of foreign state immunity under their domestic statutes. This examination shows that immunity cases defy categorization along a European/ North American divide.

Type
Chapter
Information
Whither the West?
International Law in Europe and the United States
, pp. 115 - 145
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×