On August 9, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided United States v. Assa Co. The decision is significant for its holding that a civil forfeiture action in rem concerning property of a foreign state or its instrumentality is not an action against the foreign state or instrumentality for purposes of the jurisdictional and immunity provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

Over the past two decades, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a number of principles concerning the conduct of international relations. In the preambular paragraphs of the declaration annexed to this resolution, specific principles are reaffirmed. They are: the Declaration on Principles of Interna-tional Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations [9 I.L.M. 1292 (1970)], the Definition of Aggression [13 I.L.M. 710 (1974)], and the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes [21 I.L.M. 449 (1982)]. The Declaration for 6n the Enhancement of the Effectiveness of the Principle of Refraining from the Threat or Use of Force is the culmination of 10 years of work, and represents the most recent set of guidelines.

On June 21, 2019, the International Law Organization (ILO) adopted the groundbreaking Convention No. 190 concerning the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work (C190) and the accompanying Recommendation on the same topic (R206). ILO conventions are legally binding instruments, once ratified by states, while recommendations provide advice and guidance. The result of two years of negotiations by ILO members—governments, workers’ representatives, and employers’ organizations—is an international treaty setting out standards that are aimed at ending violence and harassment in the world of work. In its “Women, Business and the Law 2018” study, the World Bank reports that there is a lack of legal protection against harassment at work in 70 percent of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa, half of the economies in East Asia and the Pacific, and one-third of those in Latin America and the Caribbean, affecting an estimated 500 million working-age women.

Over the course of the period from the end of 2022 to early 2023, requests for advisory opinions on climate change were, for the first time, made to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR).

An important ruling, with international implications regarding the increasingly fraught and unsettled realm of state regulation in the digital sphere, came from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on September 15, 2020. In its ruling in the case of Telenor Magyarország Zrt. v Nemzeti Média- és Hírközlési Hatóság Elnöke, the CJEU stepped in to make a strong defense of legislation intended to secure so-called “net neutrality”—the principle of internet regulation meant to ensure that internet service providers cannot unduly restrict end-user access to certain internet applications or services based solely on commercial considerations. The ruling continues the CJEU's strict legal interpretations in furtherance of EU regulation and protection of consumer and individual rights in the digital sphere, with a clear eye toward cementing Europe's position in the vanguard of digital regulation and in the hope that such principles will be replicated and upheld elsewhere.