Sovereign Immunity Under Pressure

Regis Bismuth is a professor of international law at Sciences Po Law School (Paris) and director of the Law Department at Sciences Po. Prof Bismuth’s main research and teaching interests lie within public international law, international economic law, international adjudication and European law. He is the author of several publications in these fields, and in particular on the law of international organizations, sovereign immunity, sovereign wealth funds, sovereign debt, WTO law, international investment law and arbitration, financial regulation, Internet regulation, and the responsibility of multinational corporations. Prof Bismuth is also director of studies of the French Branch of the International Law Association as well as co-editor-in-chief of The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals.Vera Rusinova is a professor and the head of the School of International Law at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow, Russia. The main fields of her research activities comprise human rights law, international humanitarian law, international responsibility, jus contra bellum, theory of international law and application of international law to cyber operations. She is a co-chair of the International Law Association’s Committee on Use of Force, and a member of the editorial groups of International Justice, the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies and the International Cybersecurity Law Review.Vladislav Starzhenetskiy is an associate professor at the Chair of International Law, Faculty of Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics. He also serves as an academic director of the master’s program ‘Law of International Trade, Finance and Economic Integration’ and researcher at the HSE Laboratory on Sanctions in International Law. From 1998 to 2014, he was working at the Russian Federation’s Supreme Commercial Court and was heading the Department of International Law and Cooperation from 2011 to 2014. The main fields of his research interests include jurisdictional immunities of states, economic sanctions, international protection of intellectual property and international human rights law. He is a member of the editorial group of the journal International Justice.Geir Ulfstein is a professor of international law in the Department of Public and International Law and co-director of PluriCourts – Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order. Geir was co-chair of the International Law Association’s study group on the content and evolution of the rules of interpretation, and is chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, Max Planck Institute for Procedural Law, Luxembourg. Geir has been a member of the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law (2010–2016). He is president of the Norwegian Branch of the International Law Association (ILA) and member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

• Introduction.- Part I Sovereign Immunity from Comparative Perspective: Weak v. Strong Immunity Regimes.-  Customary International Law and the U.S. Approach to Foreign Sovereign Immunity.-  Sovereign Immunity from a Comparative Perspective: The Case of Germany.- The New 2015 Russian Law on Jurisdictional Immunities of Foreign States: If You Want Peace, Prepare for War?.- Sovereign Immunity: Perspectives from Sub-Saharan Africa.- State Immunity Regimes in Latin America.- How Absolute is the Absolute State Immunity? Towards Judicialization of State Immunity in China.- The Law of State Immunity and The Role of International Courts: Looking for The Guiding Star.- Part II International Customary Law of Sovereign Immunity, Human Righ.-ts and Counter-terrorism.- Can Human Rights Overcome State Immunity? Critical Assessment of The Role of Domestic Courts in The Customary Law Creating Process.- Shrinking of Jurisdictional Immunities and Victims’ Rights: From Separation To Sinergy.- Assessing State Immunity Through the Lenses of The European Court of Human Rights: Embassy Employment Disputes as Test Bench for Restricted Immunity.- Terrorism Exception to State Immunities – an Emerging Customary Norm of International Law?.- The United States Hegemony and Reshaping the Norms of State Immunity for International Crimes.- Part III Sovereign Immunity of States and Their Financial  Obligations.- Cross-Influences in Public and Private International Law: On The (New?) EU Interpretation of Heads of Jurisdiction Over The (Traditional?) Understandings of Acta Iure Imperii.- Sovereign Debt and Immunity.- Foreign Central Banks and Immunity from Execution: Too Sovereign To Be Sued?.- Expanding Immunity from Execution Through the Backdoor: The French Example.- Conclusion.