Excellencies,

Dear Chairs and Vice-Chairs of the CAHDI

Ladies and Gentlemen,

• Today is an important day for the Council of Europe Committee of Legal Advisors on Public International Law (CAHDI) because we are celebrating the 50th meeting of our Committee which was set up in 1991.
• The importance that the Council of Europe attaches to this Committee has been evidenced by the presence of the Secretary General. The importance you attach to it has been confirmed by the participation of 14 out of 17 of the former/current Chairs and Vice-Chairs of the CAHDI. In this respect, I would like to join previous speakers who expressed deep regret over passing of the former Chair of the CAHDI (1997-1998), Mr Gyorgy Szenasi (Hungary).

• Allow me on behalf of the Council of Europe to thank all panellists for their thoughtful presentations on CAHDI’s achievements, as well as on the ideas for the future work. I would also like to thank all participants for enriching the debate.

• In my closing remarks I will not pretend to make any conclusions or even try to summarise the debates, but rather highlight some of the issues which I believe offer perspectives for CAHDI’s future work.

• Personally, my first encounter with the CAHDI dates back to some twenty years ago. As a lawyer I started working in Council of Europe’s Treaty Office in 1993. These were challenging times because we had to deal not only with accessions of many new members to the Council of Europe, but also with the effects of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia on Council of Europe treaties ratified by the two countries. Czechoslovakia had even been a member state of the Organisation. All these issues, including the role of depositaries of international treaties, were also on CAHDI’s agenda. Though not being part of CAHDI’s secretariat, I “sneaked into” some meetings and also participated in the memorable meetings held at Vienna’s Hofburg and in my home town Berlin.
• A couple of years later, I had the privilege to participate in fascinating debates between CAHDI members preceding the setting up of the ‘European Observatory of Reservations and Declarations to International Treaties’.^[1] This is an issue of particular importance for the Council of Europe whose multilateral treaties often have a normative character. In the case of such treaties, the formulation of numerous reservations may lead to the fragmentation of a coherent multilateral agreement into bilateral treaties of variable content.

• CAHDI’s observatory rapidly developed into a success story, leading to concrete and tangible results not through coercion or harmonisation of practice but through dialogue and persuasion. The observatory helps states, both those inside and those outside of our Organisation, to adopt their position vis-à-vis problematic reservations or declarations and act accordingly. In fact, we are seeing more and more often that, following examination in CAHDI, some of such reservations or declarations are withdrawn or are submitted less frequently. I am very happy to note that other fora acknowledge this work, notably the European Union with a similar exercise which is carried out by the COJUR, the Council Working Group on Public International Law.

• Sir Daniel Bethelem once said ‘the world looks different from Geneva than it does from New York’.^[2] It certainly looks quite different from Strasbourg. Instead of big power politics, the emphasis is on human rights and mutual trust. Rather than purely political, the focus is technical – on standard-setting, monitoring and effective implementation.

• In such an environment, the CAHDI as a unique network of chief legal advisers on public international law can deploy all its potential. We are living in a networked world. Personal contacts are often more effective than writing long letters or diplomatic notes.
• Within CAHDI, legal advisers establish relationships, exchange information about their activities and develop databases of best practices. All these are essential prerequisites for mutual trust and long-term cooperation not only in Europe, but also beyond, due to the much appreciated participation of observers from Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Mexico, and the USA.

• I strongly believe that the CAHDI with its global and transversal vision of international relations is ideally placed to contribute to the evolution of the public international law. Europe may count nowadays less in terms of population or military and economic power; it remains exemplary as a region of the world where international relations are based on the rule of law and an increasingly closely knit web of international conventions and treaties.

• But nowadays international law develops not only through treaty-making, state practice and judicial decisions, but also through ‘diplomatic law talk’, a term coined by then US legal adviser Prof Harold Koh. According to him, ‘diplomatic law talk’ encompasses “dialogue within communities of international lawyers working for diverse governments”, “fostering discussion and building consensus about a set of norms, rules, principles, and decision-making procedures that converge and apply in a particular issue area.”[3]

• CAHDI’s role consists not only in following closely and enriching topical debates which take place in other fora, in particular the United Nations, but also acting as a laboratory or occasionally even as a ‘catalyst’ of new ideas. A superb illustration - mentioned by several speakers - is the issue of the immunity of cultural property lent to another state. Pending the entry into force of the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property and thus filling a ‘legal vacuum’, the ‘Declaration on the Jurisdictional Immunities of State Owned Cultural Property on Loan’ has already been signed by the ministers of foreign affairs of 13 states.^[4]

• Another interesting example of CAHDI’s innovative approaches are discussions currently taking place within the committee in relation to the settlement of third-party claims for personal injuries or death and property loss or damages allegedly caused by an international organisation and the effective remedies available for claimants in these situations. The immunity of international organisations may prevent individuals who have suffered harm from conduct of an international organisation from bringing a successful claim before a domestic court. As the Council of Europe’s legal adviser, I am only too aware that this immunity has been increasingly challenged before domestic courts on account of its alleged incompatibility with the right of access to court. I believe that the Council of Europe, through your committee, can usefully contribute to the worldwide debate on this important but also sensitive topic.

• Finally, since 2004 the CAHDI has periodically examined the question of the national implementation measures of UN sanctions and respect for human rights. The Secretary General encouraged CAHDI to further develop your work on this topic building on CAHDI’s already important acquis. In the Council of Europe, home of the European Convention on Human Rights, we are only too aware that a balance has to be struck between, on the one hand, the obligations and responsibilities of states to implement international obligations arising from United Nations Security Council resolutions and, on the other hand, the obligation to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms.

• To conclude, I would like once again to thank all of you for joining us today. I trust that this conference will be a key starting point for further developing the unique and pioneering role that the CAHDI plays in relation to public international law inside and outside the Council of Europe.

Thank you very much for your attention.