Regional human rights courts in Europe and the Americas came into being in the wake of World War II. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) were established in order to adjudicate on alleged violations of the rights of individuals. Yet, since their inception these courts have also influenced other areas of international law. A part from their impact on general international law, their case law has had significant spill over effects on international criminal law, international refugee law, international environmental law, the law of armed conflicts, and the law of the sea.

At the twentieth anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the WTO’s dispute settlement system is celebrated as one of the organization’s biggest achievements. Although powerful members such as China, the European Union (EU), and the United States are regularly on the losing side of WTO trade disputes, overall support for the system remains high. If anything, it has increased over time, with early criticism by civil society waning. Compare this situation to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), centered around the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). ISDS, which started in earnest around the same time that the WTO was created, is under fire not only in capital-importing countries ranging from Ecuador, Indonesia, and South Africa but also in capital-exporting nations such as Australia, Germany, and the United States. Indeed, in the ongoing EU-U.S. negotiations over a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), ISDS emerged as one of the biggest bones of contention.

Criticism of the Security Council tends to take one of two forms: first, that it does not act enough; and second, that it acts unwisely. Although these concerns are quite different, they both have partial causal roots in the Council’s voting process. Article 27 of the United Nations Charter provides that Council decisions on nonprocedural matters require “an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members.” The ability of any of the five permanent member stove to a Council resolution makes it difficult for the Council both to act in the first place and to pass corrective resolutions when existing resolutions are criticized as problematic. Indeed, the difficulty of undoing resolutions can make Council members wary about allowing the passage of resolutions at the very outset.

The International Law Commission held its sixty-seventh session in Geneva from May 4 to June 5, and from July 6 to August 7, 2015, under the chairmanship of Narinder Singh (India). Notably, the Commission’s drafting committee completed a full set of sixteen draft conclusions on the topic of identification of customary international law, paving the way for those conclusions with commentaries to be approved by the Commission on first reading in 2016.

On March 18, 2015, an arbitral tribunal (Tribunal) constituted in accordance with Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Convention) under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration handed down its award in a proceeding brought by Mauritius in 2010 challenging the United Kingdom’s establishment of a marine protected area (MPA) around the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, which are claimed by Mauritius. The Tribunal held that it did not have jurisdiction under the Convention to address whether the United Kingdom or Mauritius has the rights of a coastal state regarding the Chagos Islands. Nevertheless, the Tribunal also held that, in creating the MPA by unilateral declaration, the United Kingdom had failed to take into account certain legitimate interests of Mauritius and had thereby breached its obligations under Articles 2(3), 56(2), and 194(4) of the Convention.

On April 2, 2015, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS or Tribunal) rendered an advisory opinion on the rights and obligations of flag states and coastal states regarding illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). ITLOS confirmed that the full Tribunal—not just its Seabed Disputes Chamber—has jurisdiction to render advisory opinions, a matter of controversy that had previously been untested. The Tribunal also held that under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS or Convention), flag states have a “due diligence” obligation to ensure that vessels flying their flag do not engage in IUU fishing activities, and that the flag state may be held liable if that obligation of due diligence is breached. In addition, the Tribunal clarified that where fisheries competence has been transferred from a state to an international organization, it is the organization, not the flag state, that may face liability for a failure to have taken adequate measures to prevent IUU fishing. Finally, the Tribunal confirmed that coastal states have a duty to consult and cooperate with each other in the sustainable management of shared stocks and highly migratory species.

On April 3, 2015, the ICSID tribunal in Venoklim Holding B. V. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela issued the first public decision to consider the effect of a state’s denunciation of the ICSID Convention (Convention). The tribunal decided that Venezuela’s denunciation on January 24, 2012, did not preclude jurisdiction over a claim submitted in the period after notification of the denunciation but before its effective date. Yet the tribunal also held that Venezuela’s domestic statute was insufficient as an autonomous offer of consent to ICSID arbitration, and that the conjunction of the statute with an investment treaty did not confer such consent where the conditions in the statute were not fulfilled. The award was notable too because of the majority’s holding that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction owing to the Venezuelan nationality of the underlying beneficial owners of the Dutch corporation that was the claimant in the ICSID arbitration. The Tribunal held that, because the claimant was effectively owned by Venezuelan nationals, the requirement of foreign ownership or control was not satisfied for the purposes of the applicable Venezuelan investment statute and the ICSID Convention.

The Dominican Republic (DR) filed its declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court or Court) on March 22, 1999, and since then has been the subject of four judgments and a series of provisional measures. On November 4, 2014, however, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Dominican Republic (Tribunal) declared unconstitutional the government’s declaration accepting jurisdiction, implying that the Dominican Republic is not now, and perhaps never has been, under the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction.