During the fall of 2019, the European Court of Justice (hereinafter the ECJ or the Court) delivered judgments in two cases addressing the responsibility of internet platform companies for the personal information they control. In Google LLC v. Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), the ECJ considered the geographic scope of its notable recent jurisprudence on the obligations of search engines to implement the “right to be forgotten” set forth in European Union (EU) data protection law. In Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v. Facebook Ireland Limited, the Court examined whether Facebook was obliged under EU law to remove information available on the social network that previously had been found under Austrian law to defame an Austrian politician.

On February 27, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Jam v. International Finance Corp., a case of critical importance for international organizations. The question presented in Jam was whether U.S. law affords international organizations absolute immunity from suit in the United States, or whether international organizations instead are entitled to only the more limited or “restrictive” immunity that applies to foreign sovereigns under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

For the first time, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are dealing concurrently with the same set of events, which concern the violence to which those in the group that self-identifies as the Rohingya have been subjected in Myanmar, and that has prompted their mass exodus to Bangladesh. Before both courts, proceedings are at a preliminary stage.

In Metal-Tech Ltd. v. Republic of Uzbekistan, an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) panel unanimously dismissed an investment claim by an Israeli investor filed pursuant to the Israel-Uzbekistan Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) against Uzbekistan. The tribunal concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the dispute because the investment was not “implemented,” i.e., “established” in accordance with the laws and regulations of Uzbekistan as it was the result of corrupt practices by the investor. To reach this conclusion, the tribunal relied, inter alia, on the requirement of consent as set forth in Article 46 of the ICSID Convention. Ultimately, the tribunal decided that as a consequence of having no jurisdiction over the claims, it had no jurisdiction over Uzbekistan’s counterclaims.