The CAHDI is an intergovernmental committee of the Council of Europe bringing together the Legal Advisers of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the member States, as well as a significant number of observer States and international intergovernmental organisations. The CAHDI facilitates exchanges and co-ordinates views of member States in the field of public international law.

In 2019, the CAHDI held two meetings: the 57th meeting, held in Strasbourg on 21-22 March 2019, and the 58th meeting, which took place in Strasbourg on 26-27 September 2019. Around 90 experts from 45 member States, seven non-member States and six international intergovernmental organisations, participated in the two CAHDI meetings in 2019.

Topical questions of public international law

Pursuant to its Terms of Reference, the CAHDI is instructed to “examine topical questions of public international law”. In 2019, the CAHDI continued to address the important issue of “Immunities of special missions”, through the publication of an analytical report on this topic by Sir Michael Wood, member of the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) and former Chair of the CAHDI, and Mr Andrew Sanger (Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge). The report analyses the legislation and practice of 38 member and non-member States of the Council of Europe participating in the CAHDI, including the main trends arising from their replies to the questionnaire prepared by the CAHDI on this matter. This bilingual CAHDI book was published by Brill-Nijhoff Publishers in April 2019 and distributed to all CAHDI experts.

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 reservations and declarations to international treaties subject to objection which are identified beforehand by the Public International Law Division.

In 2019, the Public International Law Division identified 20 reservations/declarations which were examined by the CAHDI at its two meetings.

In carrying out this examination, the CAHDI makes use of the “dialogue réservataire”, a concept that it created and for which the CAHDI has been praised for fostering dialogue and conciliation in good faith. This activity contributes to an important dialogue at the international level and has an impact on the subsequent actions of States with regard to their respective reservations and/or declarations. The dialogue that takes place in the CAHDI not only allows States that have formulated a problematic reservation to have an opportunity to clarify its scope and effect and, if necessary, clarify or withdraw it, but it also facilitates the understanding by other delegations of the rationale behind reservations before deciding to formally object to them.

Cooperation within the Council of Europe

As it is the custom, the Chair of the CAHDI (Mr Petr VÁLEK) held an exchange of views with the Ministers’ Deputies of the Council of Europe on 12 June 2019. On this occasion, the Chair underlined one of the major strengths of this Committee: its ability to focus pragmatically on issues that cannot be addressed in the same way within other international organisations. Mr Petr VÁLEK further stressed the contribution of the CAHDI to the activities of the Council of Europe, as well as the contribution of the CAHDI beyond the Council of Europe and as a liaison body with other international intergovernmental organisations. The Ministers’ Deputies expressed high appreciation for the CAHDI as a laboratory of ideas in the field of international law, with a reach well beyond the framework of the Council of Europe.

At its 57th meeting, in March 2019, the CAHDI held an exchange of views with Ambassador Emil RUFFER, Chair of the Committee of Ministers’ Rapporteur Group on Legal Co-operation (GR-J) and Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the Council of Europe. Ambassador RUFFER presented the interaction between the work of the CAHDI and the GR-J, which reviews the draft terms of reference of the CAHD and examines the legal opinions that the CAHDI prepares. He further recalled important contributions of the CAHDI to the work of the Council of Europe in the field of public international law, such as its contribution to the 2017 review of the 1980 “Model Final Clauses for Conventions, Additional Protocols and Amending Protocols concluded within the Council of Europe”, and the CAHDI’s legal opinions during the negotiations of Protocol No.14 bis (CETS No.204) to the European Convention on Human Rights as well as at of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CETS No.210), in 2011.

Co-operation with the United Nations and international tribunals

Over the year, the CAHDI continued and strengthened its co-operation and collaboration with the United Nations, in particular with the International Law Commission (ILC) and the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. In this regard, the CAHDI held an exchange of views with Mr Pavel ŠTURMA, Chair of the ILC, at its 58th meeting in September 2019. Moreover, the Secretariat of the CAHDI participated in the debates of the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly and held an exchange of views with the ILC, together with the Chair of the CAHDI.

Furthermore, to pursue the CAHDI’s long lasting and fruitful cooperation with international tribunals, an exchange of views with Judge Ivana HRDLIČKOVÁ, President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, took place at the 57th CAHDI meeting.

On 31 October 2019, the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the UN in New York and the CAHDI organised a side-event in the framework of the “International Law Week” of the UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee at the UN Headquarters in New York, on the topic “The CAHDI and its Contribution to the International Law Practice”. The panel included Mr Petr VÁLEK, Chair of the CAHDI, Mr Pavel ŠTURMA, Chair of the UN ILC, and Ambassador Emil RUFFER, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the Council of Europe. Mr Jörg POLAKIEWICZ, Director of Legal Advice and Public International Law at the Council of Europe, moderated the side-event.

Databases managed by the CAHDI

Pursuant to its Terms of Reference, the CAHDI continued to update and improve its databases, which gather the national contributions of member and observer States and organisations on the following topics: “The immunities of States and international organisations”, “The organisation and functions of the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” and “The implementation of UN sanctions and respect for Human Rights”.

Case law of the European Court of Human Rights involving issues of public international law

At the 55th meeting, the Secretariat presented to the CAHDI the revised and updated document on the “Case law of the European Court of Human Rights related to Public International Law” containing those judgments and decisions related to public international law up to 31 December 2017 for which official press releases and legal summaries were available. The CAHDI agreed at its 56th meeting that, from 2019 onwards, annual appendices to the compilation would be prepared with the new cases and published on the CAHDI website. Following this decision, in 2019 the CAHDI published the first annual appendix with judgments and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights related to public international law and issued from 1 January to 31 December 2018.