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I. EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE, Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission (JOINED CASES C-402/05 P AND C-415/05 P) JUDGMENT OF 3 SEPTEMBER 2008

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Paul James Cardwell
Affiliation:
All of School of Law, University of Sheffield
Duncan French
Affiliation:
All of School of Law, University of Sheffield
Nigel White
Affiliation:
All of School of Law, University of Sheffield

Abstract

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Type
Current Developments: Decisions of International Courts and Tribunals
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 British Institute of International and Comparative Law

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References

1 Namely regulations 2062/2001 of 19 October 2001 (Kadi) and 2199/2001 of 12 November 2001 (Al Barakaat).

2 Judgments of 21 September 2005 in Case T-306/01 Yusuf and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Case T-315/01 Kadi v Council and Commission.

3 ‘If action by the Community should prove necessary to attain, in the course of the operation of the common market, one of the objectives of the Community, and this Treaty has not provided the necessary powers, the Council shall, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, take the appropriate measures’.

4 Above (n 2) para 156.

5 ibid, paras 132–3.

6 ibid, para 182.

7 ibid, para 225.

8 ibid, para 231.

9 Opinion of Poiares Maduro Advocate General, delivered on 16 January 2008. Similar wording is found in the Opinion delivered on the Al Barakaat International Foundation case on 23 January 2008.

10 Above (n 9) paras 12–13.

11 ibid, para 24.

12 ibid, para 54.

13 See Case C-32/95 P Lisresal [1996] ECR I-5373, Case C-50/00 P Unión de Pequeños Agricultores v Council [2002] ECR I-6677.

14 Above (n 9) para 54.

15 Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 3 September 2008—Yassin Abdullah Kadi, Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities (Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P).

16 ibid, paras 174–6.

17 ibid, para 211.

18 Bosphorus Hava Yollari Turizm ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi v. Ireland (2005) (Application no. 45036/98).

19 Above n 15, para 283.

20 ibid, para 284. See also Opinion 2/94 [1996] ECR I-1759, para 34 and Case C-112/00 Schmidberger [2003] ECR I-5659 para 73.

21 ibid, para 291.

22 ibid, para 286.

23 ibid, para 316.

24 ibid, paras 318–21.

25 ibid, para 348.

26 ibid, para 366.

27 ibid, para 372–3.

28 ibid, para 374.

29 See, inter alia, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft [1970] ECR 1125.

30 Above (n 15) para 322.

31 ibid, para 321.

32 ibid, para 326.

33 For example, Tomuschat, C, ‘Note on Kadi v Council and Commission (CFI)’ (2006) 43 Common Market Law Review 537551Google Scholar.

34 See generally Wessel, R, ‘The UN, the EU and Jus Cogens’ (2006) 3 International Organizations Law Review 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Above (n 15) para 282.

36 ibid, para 316.

37 ibid, para 291.

38 Emphasis added.

39 Above (n 15) para 307.

40 ibid, para 308.

41 Article 300(7) EC Treaty: ‘Agreements concluded under the conditions set out in this Article shall be binding on the institutions of the Community and on Member States’.

42 Article 307 EC Treaty: ‘The rights and obligations arising from agreements concluded before 1 January 1958 or, for acceding States, before the date of their accession, between one or more Member States on the one hand, and one or more third countries on the other, shall not be affected by the provisions of this Treaty’.

43 Above (n 15) para 303.

44 ibid, para 294.

45 Article 25 UN Charter: ‘The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter’.

46 Article 103 UN Charter: ‘In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail’.

47 See, for example, JE Alvarez, International Organizations as Lawmakers (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005) 207.

48 See R Bernhardt, ‘Article 103’ in B Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary (2nd edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004) 1299.

49 R (on the application of Al-Jedda) v Secretary of State for Defence [2007] UKHL 58.

50 Behrami and Saramati v France, Germany and Norway (2007) (Admissibility of Application No 71412/01, and Application No 78166/01). Though the case was decided on the basis that the acts and omissions in question were attributable to the UN and not a state party to the ECHR, the Court did seem to accept the supremacy of Security Council decisions at paras 147–8.

51 N Bentwich and A Martin, A Commentary on the Charter of the United Nations (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1950) 179–80; J Frowein and N Krisch, ‘Article 41’ in Simma (n 48) 745.

52 SC Res. 1456 of 20 January 2003.

53 Above (n 15) para 4. Article 24 of the UN Charter is also mentioned at para 294.

54 Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention Arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie [1992] ICJ Rep 114, 126.

55 LM Goodrich, E Hambro and P Simons, Charter of the United Nations (3rd edn, Columbia University Press, New York, 1969) 616.

56 R Liivoja, ‘The Scope of the Supremacy Clause of the United Nations Charter’ (2008) 57 ICLQ 586.

57 Above (n 15) para 287.

58 Above (n 9) para 54.

59 Above (n 15) para 281.

60 Above (n 9) para 54.

61 Above (n 15) para 298.

62 Above (n 49) para 39. In her opinion in Al-Jedda, Baroness Hale said that the right to liberty ‘is qualified but not displaced … the right is qualified only to the extent required or authorised by the resolution’ (para 126). Lord Carswell went further and identified a number of safeguards that would minimise the infringement of the detainee's rights: ‘[T]he compilation of intelligence about such persons which is accurate and reliable as possible, the regular review of the continuing need to detain each person and a system whereby that need and the underlying evidence can be checked and challenged by representatives on behalf of the detained persons, so far as is practicable and consistent with the needs of national security and the safety of other persons’ (para 130).

63 Liivoja (n 56) 589.

64 Above (n 15) paras 283–4.

65 ibid, para 285.

66 ibid, para 288.

67 ibid, para 375.

68 Cf Wessel (n 35) 6: ‘In the face of the reality of these and perhaps future judgments in this field by regional or national courts, the Security Council will need to make this regime not only smart and targeted, but also develop its own comprehensive system for human rights protection’.

69 Above (n 16) para 291.

70 ibid, para 316.

71 Above (n 59) para 122.

72 Bosphorus, para 156 as quoted in Behrami, para 145, itself reliant upon Loizidou v Turkey (preliminary objections) (1995) para 75.

73 This can perhaps explain why the three authors of this note, though sharing responsibility for its contents, do not necessarily agree on all aspects of the analysis.