The CAHDI is an intergovernmental committee which brings together the legal advisers of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the member States of the Council of Europe as well as of a significant number of observer States and organisations. It is working to coordinate States’ activities in the field of public international law.

In 2012, the CAHDI held two meetings in order to examine topical questions of public international law, to exchange and, if appropriate, to coordinate the views of the States, respectively its 43^rd meeting (Strasbourg, 29-30 March 2012) and its 44^th meeting (Paris, 19-20 September 2012).

Adoption of legal opinions at the request of the Committee of Ministers

At the request of the Committee of Ministers, the CAHDI adopted at its 44^th meeting its Comments on Recommendation 1995 (2012) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe – “The International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance”. The Committee of Ministers took these comments into account when adopting its reply to the said recommendation.

Review of Council of Europe conventions

In 2011, at its 42^nd meeting (Strasbourg, 22-23 September 2011), the CAHDI held an exchange of views on the Preliminary Draft Report of the Secretary General on the Outline of Council of Europe Convention review. In 2012, at its 43^rd meeting, the CAHDI adopted its Observations on this preliminary draft report which were taken into account by the Secretary General when drafting the final report, transmitted to the Committee of Ministers in May 2012.

Performing its functions of European Observatory of Reservations to International Treaties

Pursuant to its terms of reference, the CAHDI is instructed to “continue its active role as the European Observatory of Reservations to International Treaties”. For this purpose, it regularly considers outstanding reservations and declarations to international treaties which are identified beforehand by the Public International Law Division and Treaty Office.

This examination allows members to initiate a reservations dialogue when there are doubts with regard to the admissibility of a reservation or a declaration. They can therefore exchange and discuss the relevance of objecting to the reservation/declaration, ask the reserving State for additional information on the reservation/declaration and the reasons for it or provide explanations when they are the authors of the said reservation/declaration.

This exercise has been welcomed on several occasions by Mr Alain Pellet, Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (ILC) on the topic of reservations to treaties, who has notably observed that the efforts of the CAHDI have borne fruit as member States coordinate more frequently their reactions to the reservations.

Developing cooperation with other international entities

In 2012, the CAHDI pursued its exchanges of views with other international entities.

At its 43^rd meeting, the members of the CAHDI held an exchange of views with Mr Luis Romero Requena, Director General of the Legal Department at the European Commission on “The legal order of the European Union and international public law”. The exchanges focused notably on the European Union (EU) as a subject of international law, the place of international law in the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU as well as on the issue of the accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Furthermore, the members of the CAHDI held an exchange of views with Mr Fausto Pocar, President of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law of San Remo, at its 44^th meeting. Mr Pocar presented to the CAHDI the work of the Institute and more particularly the conclusions of the 35^th annual Round Table on “Private Military and Security Companies” (San Remo, 6-8 September 2012).

These exchanges, highly appreciated by the members of the CAHDI as well as by the speakers, allow the protagonists to discuss issues related to public international law which are often on the international agenda.

Enriching and improving the databases of the CAHDI

Pursuant to its terms of reference, the CAHDI is instructed to “continue to update and improve databases managed by the Committee which are related to States practice on immunities of States; organisation and functions of the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and implementation of United Nations sanctions”.

These databases are very effective and useful tools for the public international law practitioners in the sense they allow the practitioners to acquaint themselves with the national practices on these themes which constantly evolve.

The year 2012 was marked by an increase in the number of contributions to these databases. This positive result appreciated by all the members of the CAHDI arises from the modernisation of the working methods of the Public International Law Division.

This modernisation will continue in 2013 with the technical development of the said databases. The Public International Law Division has indeed initiated a redesign of the website of the CAHDI and notably of its databases in order to ensure a structured and rationalised collection and compilation of the information submitted by the delegations. The tool, which is currently under development, will offer the possibility for the web users to accede more easily to the information and the work of the CAHDI. 

Maintaining and developing cooperation with the International Law Commission (ILC)

Pursuant to its terms of reference, the CAHDI is instructed to “deepen exchanges of views on the work of the International Law Commission and of the Sixth Committee”.

In this regard, the year 2012 allowed strengthening the links that the CAHDI had established with the ILC and that were already close. Indeed, in addition to the annual exchange of views between the ILC, the Chair of the CAHDI and the Jurisconsult of the Council of Europe (Geneva, 4 July 2012), the CAHDI welcomed at its 44^th meeting Sir Michael Wood, member of the ILC and Special Rapporteur on the issue “Formation and evidence of customary international law” who presented to the Committee the recent work of the ILC and of the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations (Legal).

Furthermore, in the framework of the close of the French Chairmanship of the CAHDI, the Public International Law Division organised jointly with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France a Conference on “The Judge and International Custom” (Paris, 21 September 2012).

The Conference was opened by Mr Bernard Cazeneuve, Minister Delegate for European Affairs, attached to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France) and Mr Manuel Lezertua, Jurisconsult and Director of the DLAPIL.

The moderator of the Conference, Sir Michael Wood, presented the work initiated in 2011 within the ILC on the issue before the invited speakers presented the activities of their courts:

• Mr Peter Tomka, President of the International Court of Justice;
• Mr Jiří Malenovský, judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union;
• Ms Ineta Ziemele, judge at the European Court of Human Rights;
• Mr Andreas Paulus, judge at the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany; and
• Mr Bernard Stirn, President of Section of the Council of State (France).

Given the topicality of the issue and the quality of the interventions, the Public International Law Division decided to publish the Proceedings of the Conference, which were issued in March 2013.

For the same reasons, the publishing company Brill requested the permission to publish the speeches in the June 2013 edition of the journal Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals. This offered a unique opportunity to promote the activities of the Council of Europe in this area.