On March 26, the King’s Bench Division issued a 66-page opinion, stating that Julian Assange has a real prospect of success on 3 of the 9 grounds of appeal.  It has given the United States Government  an opportunity to offer assurances that would address those groups of appeal.  Unless the U.S. gives satisfactory assurances, the Court will grant leave to appeal on those grounds.

 On March 19, 2024, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned an indictment charging a former finance director of the Latin America division of Stericycle Inc., an international waste management company headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, for participating in a scheme to pay more than $10 million in bribes to foreign officials in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

On March 12, 2024, a Montana man pleaded guilty to two felony wildlife crimes – a conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantively violating the Lacey Act.  The charges resulted from activities that occurred for approximately a decade to develop giant sheep hybrids in the United States with the purpose of selling the species to captive hunting facilities.[1]

On March 12, 2024, a Bucharest court approved the extradition of Andrew and Tristan Tate to the United Kingdom to answer charges of sexual aggression.  The court ruled that the Tate brothers will only be extradited to the U.K. after their trial in Romania on separate charges of human trafficking, rape, and participating in a criminal group to sexually exploit women concludes.[1]

On March 25, 2024, a U.S. District Court in Arizona denied the motion to dismiss by five gun dealers. It ruled that the Government of Mexico could continue its lawsuit to hold the gun dealers liable for allegedly facilitating gun trafficking from the U.S. into Mexico and causing substantial gun violence in Mexico.

On March 13, 2024, the European Parliament adopted a legislative resolution on the proposal for a directive on asset recovery and confiscation. [1]

On February 20, 2024, the Council of the European Union issued a revised list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, which includes American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Panama, the Russian Federation, Samoa, Trinidadand Tobago, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu.[1]

In the West, advocacy groups and families of Palestinian victims of Israeli violence in Gaza are mobilizing through judicial channels to challenge foreign policy pertaining to aiding the Israeli state and military.  The outcomes have yielded mixed results, but the cases signal efforts to exercise control over foreign policy by using the judiciary to regulate executive actions.  Two recent cases in the U.S. and the Netherlands highlight the successes, shortcomings, and broader effects of these efforts.

       On March 5, 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants of arrest for two suspects, Mr. Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Mr. Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov, for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine between October 2022 and March 2023.

       The two arrest warrants come two years after the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) opened an investigation into the situation in Ukraine, and one year following the issuance of the warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova for their role in the abduction of Ukrainian children (as war crimes and crimes against humanity).[1]