Khawar Qureshi QC reviews the headline-catching public international law cases before the English Courts in 2016
- Abuse of immunity considered.
- Enforcement of judgments and awards and the “commercial” exception.
- Act of state/non-justiciability and a state as a trustee discussed.
Last year saw the Supreme Court confirm the limited scope for judicial review of a decision to include a person’s name on the UN sanctions list (Youssef v SSHD [2016] UKSC 3 27/1/16). The UK policy of recognising states rather than governments was vividly illustrated in the long running saga concerning disputes as to which rival faction in Libya (“Tripoli” or “Tobruk”) controls the Libyan sovereign wealth fund (Hassan Bouhadi v Abdulmagid Breish [2016] EWHC 602 (Blair J) 17/3/16). The Divisional Court comprehensively reviewed the Customary International Law rule reflected in the common law, which requires a state which had agreed to receive a special mission to secure the inviolability and immunity from criminal jurisdiction of the mission’s members during the period of the mission (R v Freedom & Justice Party and others v FCO
