On November 13, 2019, the Sixth Committee (Legal) of the UN General Assembly engaged in discussions concerning elaboration and adopted a new convention on crimes against humanity at its seventy-fourth session.[1] The Committee considered Chapter IV of the 2019 report of the International Law Commission (ILC) on the work of its seventy-first session,^[2] which contains the draft articles on prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.[3] The Committee noted that the Commission had decided to recommend the draft articles on prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity to the General Assembly and recommended the elaboration of a convention by the Assembly or by an international conference of plenipotentiaries on the basis of the draft articles.

On December 2, 2019, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) once again declined – now for a third time – to open an investigation into Israel’s violent attack on the MV Mavi Marmara.[1] The Prosecutor described this decision, which was filed with Pre-Trial Chamber I on November 29, 2017, as “final” and revised and refiled in accordance with the Pre-Trial Chamber’s request of November 15, 2018 and the Appeals Chamber’s judgment of September 2, 2019.[2]

On December 5, 2019, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in London, following Glencore PLC’s announcement, confirmed its investigation of suspicions of bribery in the conduct of business by the Glencore group of companies, its officials, employees, agents, and associated persons.

On November 13, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the unsealing of a grand jury indictment against ten men charged with conspiring to launder illegal proceeds that were fraudulently obtained as a result of Nigerian romance scam transactions targeting multiple victims.[1]

On November 21, President Donald Trump tweeted that he would personally intervene to ensure that Edward Gallagher, a Navy Seal convicted of a war crime, would not lose his membership in an elite commando force.[1] In July, Gallagher was convicted of a war crime, posing with a dead body on a battlefield, and President Trump subsequently pardoned him.[2] What is notable about this case is that the Trump administration has intervened repeatedly and actively to undermine the normal course of justice in a case regarding serious alleged war crimes.[3]^,[4] While this may seem to be part and parcel for a country that many assume acts with total impunity in war, President Trump’s actions are, in fact, a significant deviation from normal standards of practice. An analysis of Trump administration responses to allegations of war crimes reveals a very specific shift in U.S. government policy meant to create a culture of impunity surrounding U.S. soldiers and to undermine what has been an effective domestic military justice system. These actions will undermine the rule of law domestically, damage perceptions of the U.S. military globally, and likely provide a blueprint for justifying war crimes by other global actors.

On December 1, 2019, the new President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen marked the 10-year anniversary of the Treaty of Lisbon’s entry into force. December 1, 2019 also marks 10 years since EU cooperation on borders, migration, justice, and internal security became a fully-fledged Union policy.

At the Tenth Anniversary Meeting[1] on November 26 and 27, 2019,  the OECD trumpeted the achievements of the work of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (“the Global Forum”) in Paris.  The meeting brought together more than 500 delegates from 131 member jurisdictions for discussions on efforts to advance the tax transparency agenda. According to the information in the Global Forum’s tenth anniversary report,[2] the work of the Global Forum has produced thousands of bilateral exchange relationships, enabling more than 250,000 information exchange requests over the past decade.  In 2018, nearly 100 member jurisdictions automatically exchanged information on 47 million financial accounts, covering total assets of $4.9 trillion.  Since 2009, more than €100 billion in additional tax revenue has been obtained.

On June 26, 2019, three families who lost family members in a bombing campaign sued  Libya’s warlord Khalifa Haftar (also referred to as Hifter) in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.[1]  It adds to the efforts by human rights groups to have the UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate Haftar. The complaint alleges that in 1969 Haftar participated in the coup lead by Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi to overthrow the government of the King of Libya.  Thereafter, Haftar was a close ally of Ghaddafi.  Eventually, Haftar was a senior military leader in the Libyan Army under Ghaddaffi. 

A U.S. court recently ordered Iran to pay $180 million in damages to U.S. journalist Jason Rezaian who was captured at gun point and imprisoned for 544 days in the infamous Evin Prison.  At the time he was seized, he was working legally in Tehran as a reporter for The Washington Post.

On November 8, 2019, the European Commission submitted an EU-restricted report to the Council of the European Union on the progress of the negotiation of an EU-U.S. agreement on cross-border access to electronic evidence (“e-evidence”). Specifically, the Commission updated the Council on the results of the second round of negotiations in view of an agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on cross-border access to electronic evidence for judicial cooperation in criminal matters on November 6, 2019.[1]