On June 28, 2023, China took a significant step forward in its legislative domain with the enactment of the Foreign Relations Law (FRL). This pivotal legislation entered into effect on July 1, 2023, and serves as a comprehensive framework designed to guide and govern China's international interactions across various sectors. The FRL marks a crucial development in the way China manages its external affairs, aiming to assert itself robustly on the global stage. It endeavors to streamline and clarify the guiding principles of China's foreign engagements, ensuring these are in alignment with its national interests and resonate with its global obligations.

On February 16, 2024, the UK Central Criminal Court handed down its sentence in the unprecedented female genital mutilation (FGM) case against British national Amina Noor for her role in carrying out an FGM procedure performed on a UK citizen abroad.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention on the International Effects of Judicial Sales of Ships at its 47th plenary meeting on December 7, 2022 (the Convention). Known as the “Beijing Convention on the Judicial Sale of Ships,” the Convention opened for signature at a ceremony held in Beijing, PRC, on September 5, 2023. By its terms, the Convention will enter into force 180 days after the date that it is ratified, accepted, approved, or otherwise acceded to by at least three states. With strong backing from the maritime community, it is expected that the Convention will enter into force by 2024.

This case addressed irregularities in the investigation of the death of Digna Ochoa y Plácido on October 19, 2001. The petition alleged that her death occurred in the context of harassment and attacks against human rights defenders in Mexico. The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (the Commission) found that the state was responsible for violations of rights related to judicial protection and judicial guarantees under Articles 8(1) and 25 and personal integrity under Article 5 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR).

In two cases decided on October 18, 2022, the European Court of Human Rights issued judgments for the first time in complaints alleging racial profiling in police identity checks. The applicants in both cases alleged that the police had selected them for a check due to racial discrimination, and both argued that the state had failed to conduct an effective investigation in response to their complaints. In one case, a unanimous court found a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, but in the other case, a sharply divided court decided 4–3 that there was no violation. The cases raise serious questions about proof and evidence in racial profiling cases, as well as what policies and procedures would meet the state obligation to ensure an adequate legal framework to protect against racial discrimination.

Congress recently enacted significant reforms to the laws governing the reporting and publication of international agreements in the United States. These reforms were adopted in December 2022 and took effect in September 2023, and the State Department issued regulations implementing them in early October 2023.

There have many developments since the publication in International Legal Materials of the initial United Kingdom–Rwanda Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2022, not the least being the unanimous judgment of the UK Supreme Court published below. In addition, the present government has secured the passage of several new laws, including the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, intended to both buttress its policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing of their claims and meet the objections of the Court. It has also “translated” the MoU into a binding treaty, since ratified by both parties, and Rwanda has enacted new asylum laws, as it had agreed.

Yegiazaryan v. Smagin represents a landmark case within the Supreme Court's (SCOTUS) jurisdiction, revolving around a contractual dispute between John Yegiazaryan and Alex Smagin. The legal intricacies unfolded when Smagin sought to enforce a multimillion-dollar arbitration award against Yegiazaryan in California under the New York Convention. The district court's asset freeze faced complications as Yegiazaryan, residing in California, received an unrelated arbitration award and attempted to evade the freeze. In response, Smagin invoked the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), alleging a coordinated effort to obstruct the collection of the arbitration judgment. The case stands as a pivotal legal milestone marked by complexities and jurisdictional challenges.

This is the latest judgment in a case filed in 2020 by the state of Missouri against several named defendants and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for allegedly allowing COVID-19 to spread, engaging in a coverup of the virus, and hoarding PPE, such as high-quality masks, which caused the virus to spread further. In July 2022, the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed the complaint, finding that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) applied to all the defendants in the case, including the CCP and that neither the commercial activity exception or the noncommercial torts exception applied. The Court of Appeals affirmed, barring one difference. The Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that the FSIA applied to all the defendants and that neither exception raised applied. However, it reversed the lower court's dismissal of the PPE hoarding claim, finding that that the taking over of “mask-producing factories and buying up a substantial portion of the world's supply of personal-protective equipment” was commercial in nature.

On November 16, 2023, the International Court of Justice voted 13 – 2 in favor of issuing a binding Order in the case of Canada and the Netherlands v. Syrian Arab Republic. The Order adopted two provisional measures, which require Syria to prevent acts of torture and other cruel punishment, ensure that its officials and organizations do not commit torture or other cruel punishments, and preserve any evidence related to the allegations of the case. A Request for the Indication of Provisional Measures seeking such an order had been entered on June 8, 2023, by Canada and the Netherlands, for which oral arguments were held on October 10, 2023. The Request came alongside Canada's and the Netherlands' Joint Application instituting proceedings against Syria for violations of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Request and Application were made pursuant to Articles 36 and 41 of the Statute of the Court, Article 30 of the Convention against Torture, and Articles 73, 74, and 75 of the Rules of the Court. Vice-President Gevorgian and Judge Xue voted against both provisional measures, with Vice-President Gevorgian appending a dissenting opinion and Judge Xue appending a declaration.

On September 1, 2023, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress promulgated the Foreign State Immunity Law of the People's Republic of China (FSIL), which entered into force on January 1, 2024. The law abandons China's prior adherence to the absolute theory of state immunity and instead adopts the restrictive theory followed by most other countries. Under the restrictive theory, foreign states are immune from suits based on their governmental acts (acta jure imperii) but are subject to suits based on their non-governmental acts (acta jure gestionis).