Introduction
On 25 September 2024, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly High-level meeting, Canada, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands announced that they would take formal steps against Afghanistan for numerous violations by the Taliban of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The next day, 22 more States joined them in a statement supporting the initiative taken by these states ‘under Article 29 of CEDAW’. Article 29 of CEDAW requires State parties to any dispute not settled by negotiation to resort to arbitration. However, ‘[i]f within six months from the date of the request for arbitration the parties are unable to agree on the organization of the arbitration’, they may refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This raises the question of whether the Taliban, not formally recognised by any State since it took power in Afghanistan at the end of a long-lasting civil war, can represent Afghanistan as its government before an arbitral tribunal or ultimately the ICJ. In this post, I specifically address this question, while Kyra Wigard covers the judicial aspects and overall implications of this initiative in her recent post.
Read More “Representation of Afghanistan before the International Court of Justice – EJIL: Talk!” »
