¹ Eur. Court, H.R., Kalogeropoulou et al. v. Greece and Germany, Admissibility Decision of 12 December 2002, available at: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int.Google Scholar

² Cf., e.g., Eur. Court H.R., Sawoniuk v. United Kingdom, Admissibility Decision of 29 May 2001, Papon v. France, Judgment of 25 July 2002, Priebke v. Italy, Admissibility Decisions of 5 April 2001 and 7 March 2002, all available at: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int.Google Scholar

³ Eur. Court, H.R., Al-Adsani v. United Kingdom, Judgment of 21 November 2001, available at: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int.Google Scholar

⁴ Id., Dissenting Opinion of Judges Rozakis and Caflisch, Dissenting Opinion of Judge Ferrari Bravo, Dissenting Opinion of Judge Loucaides.Google Scholar

⁵ Maierhöfer, Christian, Der EGMR als “Modernisierer” des Völkerrechts? – Staatenimmunität und ius cogens auf dem Prüfstand, 29 Europäische Grundrechtezeitschrift 391 (2002); Christian J. Tams, Schwierigkeiten mit dem Ius Cogens, 40 Archiv des Völkerrechts 331 (2002); Markus Rau, After Pinochet: Sovereign Immunity in Respect of Serious Human Rights Violations – The Decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Al-Adsani Case, 3 German Law Journal (GLJ) No. 6 (2002), available at: http://www.germanlawjournal.com/past_issues.php?id=160.Google Scholar

⁶ Kalogeropoulou decision (note 1), Part 1.D.1.a. under the heading “En Droit“.Google Scholar

⁷ The perpetrators of the Distomo massacre belonged to the Zweite Kompanie des Siebten SS-Polizei Panzer-grenadier-Regiments (Second Company of the Seventh SS-Police Armored Infantry Regiment).Google Scholar

⁸ Pagos, Areios, Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic of Germany, Case No 11/2000, Decision of 4 May 2000, excerpts reprinted (in German) in: 32 Kritische Justiz (KJ) 472, 475 (2000). For a summary and discussion of this judgment in English, see Maria Gavouneli/Ilias Bantekas, 95 AJIL 198–204 (2001).Google Scholar

⁹ Id.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Id.Google Scholar

¹¹ Id.Google Scholar

¹² See the several books on the topic written by Hermann Frank Meyer and presented on his homepage at: http://www.hfmeyer.com/.Google Scholar

¹³ German Federal Constitutional Court, Decision of 31 July 1973, 36 Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfGE), 1, 15 (Grundlagenvertrag Decision), English translation available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/global_law/cases/german/bverfg/bverfg_31july1973.html.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Court of First Instance of Leivadia, Prefecture of Voiotia v. Federal Republic of Germany, Case No. 137/1997, Judgment of 30 October 1997, excerpts reprinted in: 50 Revue Hellenique de Droit International 595–602. For an English summary and short discussion of the judgment, see Ilias Bantekas, 92 American Journal of International Law (AJIL) 765–768 (1998).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Leivadia judgment (note 14), 598; Bantekas (note 14), 766.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Leivadia judgment (note 14), 599–600. The main arguments mentioned for this opinion were that by violating jus cogens, a state had tacitly waived its immunity (cf. infra, note 21), and that a state would furthermore be estopped from claiming state immunity in cases of breaches of jus cogens.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Leivadia judgment (note 14), 599; Bantekas (note 14), 766.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Bantekas (note 14), 765.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Areios Pagos decision (note 8), 476; Gavouneli/Bantekas (note 8), 198. For a further discussion of this judgment, see Christoph Schminck-Gustavus, Nemesis: Anmerkungen zum Urteil des Areopag zur Entschädigung griechischer Opfer von NS-Kriegsverbrechen, 33 KJ 111–117 (2001).Google Scholar

²⁰ Areios Pagos decision (note 8), 475–476; Gavouneli/Bantekas (note 8), 198.Google Scholar

²¹ Gavouneli/Bantekas (note 8), 200. This argument was first brought up by Adam C. Belsky et al., Comment: Implied Waiver under the FSIA: A Proposed Exception to Immunity for Violations of Peremptory Norms of International Law, 77 California Law Review 365 (1989). Although it has gained some support among American judges, it does not seem to be a very convincing argument for the limitation of state immunity in cases such as this one: While it is generally accepted that states may waive their immunity, the circumstances must be such that an implied waiver can be clearly inferred from the state's behavior. It would be far-fetched to claim that a state had implicitly waived its immunity in a case where it was obviously of great value for the state not to be sued before a foreign court. For a critique of the waiver argument, see also Matthias Reimann, A Human Rights Exception to Sovereign Immunity: Some Thoughts on Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany, 16 Michigan Journal of International Law (Mich. JIL) 403, 409, 414–415 (1995), Magdalini Karagiannakis, State Immunity and Fundamental Human Rights, 11 Leiden Journal of International Law 9, 20–21 (1998).Google Scholar

²² Cf. Gavouneli/Bantekas (note 8), 200.Google Scholar

²³ Areios Pagos decision (note 8), 476; Gavouneli/Bantekas (note 8), 198.Google Scholar

²⁴ Kalogeropoulou decision (note 1), under the heading “En Fait“.Google Scholar

²⁵ Id.Google Scholar

²⁶ Id.Google Scholar

²⁷ European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 4 November 1950, 213 UNTS 222 (hereinafter: European Convention).Google Scholar

²⁸ Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 20 March 1952, ETS No. 9 (hereinafter: Additional Protocol).Google Scholar

²⁹ The Constitution of Greece of 1974, available at: http://www.hri.org/docs/syntagma/syntagma.html.Google Scholar

³⁰ Special Highest Court of Greece, Federal Republic of Germany v. Miltiadis Margellos, Case 6/17-9-2002, Decision of 17 September 2002, German translation on file with the authors.Google Scholar

³¹ Id., para. 14.Google Scholar

³² Id., para. 15.Google Scholar

³³ Al-Adsani judgment (note 3), paras. 60–66.Google Scholar

³⁴ ICJ, Case concerning the Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Congo v. Belgium), Judgment of 14 February 2002, para. 58, available at: http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/iCOBE/iCOBEframe.htm.Google Scholar

³⁵ Judgment of the Special Highest Court (note 30), para. 14.Google Scholar

³⁶ Inter alia, the minority referred to Arts. 11 and 31 of the European Convention on State Immunity of 16 May 1972, ETS No. 74, available at: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/CadreListeTraites.htm.Google Scholar

³⁷ Cf., supra, note 4.Google Scholar

³⁸ Judgment of the Special Highest Court (note 30), para. 14 lit. [a] – [e].Google Scholar

³⁹ Id., operative part.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The consideration of this complaint is beyond the scope of this article. The ECHR decided that the applicants’ fears were not objectively justified, accordingly it dismissed this complaint: Kalogeropoulou decision (note 1), Part 2.A. under the heading “En Droit“.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Id., under the heading “Griefs“, and Part 1.C. under the heading “En Droit“.Google Scholar

⁴² Id., Part 1.D.1.a. under the heading “En Droit“.Google Scholar

⁴³ Id.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Al-Adsani judgment (note 3), paras. 52–56, 66.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Kalogeropoulou decision (note 1), Part 1.D.1.a. under the heading “En Droit“.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Id.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Id., Part 1.D.1.b. under the heading “En Droit“.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ This does not, of course, mean that Germany had not been in a position to influence the Greek authorities through political means.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Id., Part 1.D.2. under the heading “En Droit“.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cf., supra, note 5. On the earlier decision of an American court in the Princz case, see Andreas Zimmermann, Sovereign Immunity and Violations of International Jus cogens – Some Critical Remarks, 16 Mich. JIL 433, 438 (1995). For a critical view of the Al-Adsani decision, see Alexander Orakhelashvili, State Immunity and International Public Order, 45 German Yearbook of International Law 227 (2002).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Cf. Arts. 53 and 64 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 23 May 1969, 8 ILM 679 (1969).Google Scholar

⁵² Kadelbach, Stefan, Zwingendes Völkerrecht 286, 307 (1992).Google Scholar

⁵³ Brownlie, Ian, Principles of International Law 343–344 (5th ed. 1998); Orakhelashvili (note 50), 234–241. See also Helmut Steinberger, State Immunity, in: Rudolf Bernhard (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public International Law 428 et seq., especially 429 (Installment 10, 1989).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Maierhöfer (note 5), 397; Rau (note 5), para. 13; Zimmermann (note 50), 437–438.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Zimmermann (note 50 438.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Al-Adsani judgment (note 3), Concurring Opinion of Judge Pellonpää.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Doehring, Karl, Staatenimmunität dient dem Rechtsfrieden, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 11 September 2001, 10.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Maierhöfer (note 5, 398 (translation by the authors).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Malanczuk, Peter, Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law 58 (7th ed. 1997).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ See, among others, Tams (note 5, 345–348; Rau (note 5, paras. 15–16. This was also discussed broadly in the Al-Adsani judgment (note 3), paras. 60–66.Google Scholar

⁶¹ The most important judgment in this respect was probably that of the British House of Lords, Regina v. Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate and Others, ex parte Pinochet Ugarte (No. 3), Judgment of 24 March 1999, [2000] AC 147.Google Scholar

⁶² Supra, note 60. See also Al-Adsani judgment (note 3), paras. 61–66.Google Scholar

⁶³ Malanczuk (note 59), 59.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Id.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Id., 58 – 59.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ GA Res. 2625 (XXV) of 24 October 1970.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ André de Hoogh, The Relationship Between Ius Cogens, Obligations Erga Omnes and International Crimes: Peremptory Norms in Perspective, 42 Austrian Journal of Public International Law 183, 193 (1989), referring to Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited (Belgium v. Spain), Second Phase, ICJ Reports 1970, 3, para. 33.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ In a similar vein, Reimann (note 21), 421, proposing an amendment to the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act denying immunity for jus cogens violations, holds that violations of basic human rights are no longer a strictly internal matter of the state concerned and that a state, when violating jus cogens, “steps outside the boundaries drawn by the international community […]. It thus forfeits the privileges accorded to all members,” including respect for its sovereign immunity. Similar also Orakhelashvili (note 50), 255–256.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ It should be clarified here that, of course, not every limit to the judicial enforcement of a jus cogens norm can be prohibited under this concept. Limits resulting from the very nature of a court trial, like e.g. requirements concerning the manner and the time in which parties have to present their case, etc., would of course still be valid. State immunity, however, does not represent such a necessary limitation following from the nature of a court trial.Google Scholar

This can be confirmed by reference to the parallel case of reprisals against a violator of an obligation erga omnes: A third state wanting to use reprisals against the violating state, although not barred from doing so, would still have to abide by the procedural constraints of the law of reprisals, i.e. it would have to announce the reprisal in beforehand and would only be allowed to use measures proportional to the original violation.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Another question relevant to the case at hand, due to the intertemporal character of international law, is whether the concept of jus cogens was already known in 1944 and whether the relevant prohibitions of war crimes were accepted as forming part of jus cogens. On this question, cf. on the one hand Zimmermann ((note 50), 437), according to whom the notion of jus cogens has only developed after the end of World War II, on the other hand Norman Paech (Der Juristische Schatten der Wehrmachtsverbrechen in Griechenland, Part 5.2, available at: http://www.hwp-hamburg.de/fach/fg_jura/dozentinnen/paech.htm), according to whom the Distomo massacer was a violation of prohibitions enshrined in the Hague Regulations of 1907, which already by that time were of underogable character, even though they were not yet given the designation of “jus cogens“.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Sicilianos, Linos-Alexander, The Classification of Obligations and the Multilateral Dimension of the Relations of International Responsibility, 13 European Journal of International Law (EJIL) 1127 (2002).Google Scholar

⁷² The various steps on the road from bilateralism to multilateralism are retraced in the article by Marina Spinedi, From One Codification to Another: Bilateralism and Multilateralism in the Genesis of the Codification of the Law of Treaties and the Law of State Responsibility, 13 EJIL 1099–1125 (2002).Google Scholar

⁷³ Id., 1115–1118.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ According to Eric Wyler, there has not been much of a substantial change between the concept of “crime” as contained in Art. 19 of the 1979 Draft Articles, and “serious breaches of obligations under peremptory norms of international law” as now contained in Art. 40: Eric Wyler, From ‘State Crime’ to Responsibility for ‘Serious Breaches of Obligations under Peremptory Norms of International Law', 13 EJIL 1147, 1159 (2002).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts, Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its Fifty-third session, UN Doc. A/56/10, 43 (2001), Art. 40.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Id., Art. 48.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Tams, Christian J., Do Serious Breaches Give Rise to Any Specific Obligations of the Responsible State ?, 13 EJIL 1161–1180 (2002).Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Cf. Draft Articles (note 75), Art. 41 paras. 1 and 2.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Pierre-Marie Dupuy, A General Stocktaking of the Connections between the Multilateral Dimension of Obligations and Codification of the Law of Responsibility, 13 EJIL 1053, 1066 – 1081.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Reimann (note 21), 423–425, also dismisses political arguments against a jus cogens exception as unconvincing.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Following the Agreement on Reparation concluded between the Allied Powers at the Paris Conference on Reparation in 1946, the amount of compensation to be paid to Greece was fixed at 7.5 billion US$. Cf. Agreement on Reparation from Germany, on the Establishment of an Inter-Allied Reparation Agency and on the Restitution of Monetary Gold, Paris, 14 January 1946, 555 UNTS 73.Google Scholar

⁸² Kempen, Bernhard, Der Fall Distomo: griechische Reparationsforderungen gegen die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, in Tradition und Weltoffenheit des Rechts – Festschrift für Helmut Steinberger 179, 188 footnote 35 (Hans-Joachim Cremer/Thomas Giegerich/Dagmar Richter/Andreas Zimmermann eds., 2002).Google Scholar

⁸³ Letter from the German Embassy in Athens to Argyris N. Sfountouris, 23 January 1995, as cited by Paech (note 70), text accompanying footnote 46.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Treaty on the Final Regulation concerning Germany, Moscow, 12 September 1990, 29 ILM 1186 (1990), also available at: http://www.usembassy.de/usa/2plusfour8994e.htm.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ The treaty now applies to the Russian Federation as successor state of the Soviet Union.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ On the question of whether such claims may be barred due to estoppel because of the long time that has passed since the atrocities were committed or because Greece did not raise complaints after it gained knowledge of the content of the 2+4 Treaty, see Paech (note 70), Parts 4.1–4.2.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ In fact, before the passing of the German law creating the compensation foundation “Responsibility, Remembrance and Future,” several victims of NS forced labor had pursued (and some are still pursuing) class action lawsuits against German firms before American courts. More information on this issue can be found in the various articles in Peer Zumbansen (ed.), NS-Forced Labor. Remembrance and Responsibility. Legal and Historical Observations (2002). Cf. also German Law Journal Co-Editor, Dr. Peer Zumbansen, Leads Trans-Atlantic Seminar on Nazi Slave Labor Compensation at University of Frankfurt, 2 GLJ No. 1 (2001), available at: http://www.germanlawjournal.com/past_issues.php?id=48.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ According to Tams (note 5), 331, the “idealistic concept” of jus cogens as proposed in this article, while preferable on a conceptual basis, does not fit the current legal practice; one should therefore follow the “pragmatic concept” of the ECHR majority.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ The oral hearing in the case III ZR 245/98 will be on 12 June 2003, cf. Bundesgerichtshof, Press Release 6/2003, Vorschau auf Entscheidungen des Bundesgerichtshofs in den nächsten Monaten des Jahres 2003, available at: http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/ Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Nazi-Regimes. The homepage of the VVN is available at: http://www.vvn-bda.de.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Cg., e.g., the proposal for a hearing under the title “Angreifbare Traditionspflege“ to take part in June 2003, available at: http://www.nrw.vvn-bda.de/texte/hearing_angreifbare_tradpflege.htm.Google Scholar

⁹² Sander, Ulrich, Nimmt Stoiber endlich die Hinweise der VVN-BdA ernst?, Antifaschistische Nachrichten No. 24/2002, available at: http://www.antifaschistische-nachrichten.de/2002/24/sander.php.Google Scholar

⁹³ Kameradenkreis.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ The term “unangreifbare Traditionspflege” was coined by Stoiber himself, cf. http://www.wehrpolitik.com/noframe/onlineausgabe/rede_mp_abschl_app_1GD.html. Cf. also VVN-BdA, Deckt Stoiber NS-Kriegsverbrecher?, Dokumentation, available at: http://www.vvn-bda.de/bund/stoiber.htm.Google Scholar