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France—immunity from taxation under ICJ Statute—effect of customary international law in French administrative courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Bernard H. Oxman  and
Stefan A. Riesenfeld
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Extract

In Re Aquarone. 101 Revue Générale de Droit International Public 838 (1997).

Conseil d'Etat (Assemblée), June 6, 1997.

In this case, the French Council of State, sitting in its most authoritative formation, had to pass on a petition by Stanislav Aquarone for review of a judgment of the administrative court of appeal of Lyon, dismissing his request for annulment of die imposition by France of income taxes on his retirement pension for the years 1981-1986, paid by the United Nations. In a carefully crafted opinion, the highest administrative court of France rejected die petition and die claim of immunity from taxation of his retirement pay by Aquarone, a former Registrar of the International Court of Justice and an Australian national now living in Gordes, France.

Type
International Decisions
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 92 , Issue 4 , October 1998 , pp. 764 - 765
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1998

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References

1 The judgment is also reported in La Semaine Juridique 1997, II, 22,945, with a note by G. Teboul; and in Les Petites Affiches, No. 16, 1998, at 18, in a comment by P. Martin entitled Quand la coutume Internationale doit battre en retraite.

2 The conclusions of Commissioner Bachelier are reprinted in 101 Revue Générale de Droit International Public [RGDIP] 840 (1997).

3 The Preamble to the 1946 Constitution is incorporated by reference into the current Constitution.

4 For the American reader, it may be of interest that Bachelier, in discussing the question of normative effect of paragraph 14 of the Preamble, referred to an article by Lawrence Preuss, published in 1951. 101 RGDIP at 857.

5 Conseil d'Etat (Ass.), Oct. 20, 1989, Dalloz-Sirey, Jurisprudence [D.] 1990, 135, summarized in 84 AJIL 765 (1990).

6 Nov. 20, 1989, GA Res. 44/25, UN GAOR, 44th Sess., Supp. No. 49, at 166, UN Doc. A/44/49 (1989), 28 ILM 1448 (1989). While the Court of Cassation, relying on Article 4 of the Convention, has denied the self-executing character of the provisions invoked, the Council of State has reached the opposite conclusion with respect to the provisions involved in the case before it. See In re Cinar, Conseil d'Etat (Ass.), Sept. 22, 1997, reprinted and discussed in M. Reydellet, La Convention des droits de l'enfant n'est pas un traité “hors-jeu, ” Les Petites Affiches, NO. 11, 1998, at 17–19; J. Massip, Note to Cass, le civ., Mar. 10, 1993, D. 1993, 361; Cass, le civ., July 15, 1993, D. 1994, 191.