GRAND
CHAMBER
DECISION
AS TO THE
ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 52207/99
by Vlastimir and Borka BANKOVIĆ, Zivana STOJANOVIĆ, Mirjana
STOIMENOVSKI, Dragana JOKSIMOVIĆ and Dragan SUKOVIĆ
against
Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom
The European Court
of Human Rights, sitting as a Grand Chamber composed of
Mr L. Wildhaber,
President,
Mrs E. Palm,
Mr C.L.
Rozakis,
Mr G.
Ress,
Mr J.-P.
Costa,
Mr Gaukur
Jörundsson,
Mr L.
Caflisch,
Mr P.
Kūris,
Mr I.
Cabral
Barreto,
Mr R.
Türmen,
Mrs V.
StráZnická,
Mr C.
Bîrsan,
Mr J.
Casadevall,
Mr J.
Hedigan,
Mrs W.
Thomassen,
Mr A.B.
Baka,
Mr K.
Traja,
Judges,
and Mr P.J. Mahoney,
Registrar,
Having regard to
the above application lodged on 20 October 1999 and registered on 28
October 1999,
Having regard to
the decision of 14 November 2000 by which the Chamber of the First
Section to which the case had originally been assigned relinquished
its jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber (Article 30 of the
Convention),
Having regard to
the observations submitted by the respondent Governments and the
observations in reply submitted by the applicants,
Having regard to
the parties’ oral submissions on 24 October 2001 and their
subsequent written comments in reply to Judges’ questions,
Having deliberated on 24 October and 12 December 2001, decides, on
the last-mentioned date, as follows:
THE
FACTS
- The
applicants are all citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(“FRY”). The first and second applicants, Vlastimir and
Borka Banković, were born in 1942 and 1945, respectively and
they apply to the Court on their own behalf and on behalf of their
deceased daughter, Ksenija Banković. The third applicant, Zivana
Stojanović, was born in 1937 and she applies on her own behalf
and on behalf of her deceased son, Nebojsa Stojanović. The
fourth applicant, Mirjana Stoimenovski, applies on her own behalf and
on behalf of her deceased son, Darko Stoimenovski. The fifth
applicant, Dragana Joksimović, was born in 1956 and she applies
on her own behalf and on behalf of her deceased husband, Milan
Joksimović. The sixth applicant, Dragan Suković, applies in
his own right.
- The
applicants are represented before the Court by Mr Anthony Fisher, a
solicitor practising in Essex, by Mr Vojin Dimitrijević,
Director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, by Mr Hurst Hannum,
Professor of International Law at Tufts University, Medford, MA, the
United States and by Ms Françoise Hampson, barrister and
Professor of International Law at the University of Essex. Those
representatives attended the oral hearing before the Court together
with their advisers, Mr Rick Lawson, Ms Tatjana Papić and Mr
Vladan Joksimović. The third applicant, Ms Zivana Stojanović,
also attended the hearing.
- The
Governments are represented before the Court by their Agents. At the
oral hearing the following Governments were represented as follows:
the United Kingdom (whose submissions were made on behalf of all
respondents) by Mr Christopher Greenwood Q.C. and Professor of
International Law, by Mr James Eadie, Counsel, by Mr Martin Eaton,
Agent, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and by Mr Martin Hemming,
Adviser; Belgium by Mr Jan Lathouwers, Deputy Agent; France by
Mr Pierre Boussaroque, Counsel; Germany by Mr Christoph
Blosen, Deputy to the German Permanent Representative to the Council
of Europe; Greece by Mr Michael Apessos, Advisor; Hungary by Mr Lipót
Höltzl and Ms Monika Weller, Agent and Co-Agent, respectively;
Italy by Mr Francesco Crisafulli, Deputy Co-Agent; Luxembourg by
Mr Nicolas Mackel, Agent; The Netherlands by Ms Jolien Schukking,
Agent; Norway by Mr Frode Elgesem, Acting Agent; Poland by Mr
Krysztof Drzewicki, Agent and Ms Renata Kowalska, Counsel; and Turkey
by Ms Deniz Akçay, Co-Agent.
A. The circumstances of the case
- The
facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as
follows.
- The
respondent Governments considered the application inadmissible
without any need to address the facts of the case and submitted that
any failure on their part to expressly dispute a fact should not be
held against them. The Court has not, in summarising the
circumstances of the case below, interpreted any failure expressly to
contest a fact as any party’s acceptance of it.
1. Background
- The
conflict in Kosovo between Serbian and Kosovar Albanian forces during
1998 and 1999 is well documented. Against the background of the
escalating conflict, together with the growing concerns and
unsuccessful diplomatic initiatives of the international community,
the six-nation Contact Group (established in 1992 by the London
Conference) met and agreed to convene negotiations between the
parties to the conflict.
- On 30
January 1999, and following a decision of its North Atlantic Council
(“NAC”), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (“NATO”)
announced air strikes on the territory of the FRY in the case of
non-compliance with the demands of the international community.
Negotiations consequently took place between the parties to the
conflict from 6 to 23 February 1999 in Rambouillet and from 15 to 18
March 1999 in Paris. The resulting proposed peace agreement was
signed by the Kosovar Albanian delegation but not by the Serbian
delegation.
- Considering
that all efforts to achieve a negotiated, political solution to the
Kosovo crisis had failed, the NAC decided on, and on 23 March 1999
the Secretary General of NATO announced, the beginning of air strikes
(Operation Allied Force) against the FRY. The air strikes lasted from
24 March to 8 June 1999.
2. The bombing of Radio Televizije Srbije (“RTS”)
- Three
television channels and four radio stations operated from the RTS
facilities in Belgrade. The main production facilities were housed in
three buildings at Takovska Street. The master control room was
housed on the first floor of one of the buildings and was staffed
mainly by technical staff.
- On
23 April 1999, just after 2.00 am approximately, one of the RTS
buildings at Takovska Street was hit by a missile launched from a
NATO forces’ aircraft. Two of the four floors of the building
collapsed and the master control room was destroyed.
- The
daughter of the first and second applicants, the sons of the third
and fourth applicants and the husband of the fifth applicant were
killed and the sixth applicant was injured. Sixteen persons were
killed and another sixteen were seriously injured in the bombing of
the RTS. Twenty-four targets were hit in the FRY that night,
including three in Belgrade.
3. Relevant proceedings before other international
tribunals
- On
26 April 1999 the FRY deposited with the Secretary General of the
United Nations (“UN”) its declaration recognising the
compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice
(“ICJ”). On 29 April 1999 the FRY instituted proceedings
against Belgium and nine other States concerning their participation
in Operation Allied Force and submitted a request for the indication
of provisional measures pursuant to Article 73 of the Rules of Court
of the ICJ. By order dated 2 June 1999 the ICJ rejected that request.
The remaining issues in the case are pending.
- In
June 2000 the Committee established to review Operation Allied Force
reported to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”). An investigation was not
recommended. On 2 June 2000 the Prosecutor informed the UN Security
Council of her decision not to open an investigation.
B. Relevant international legal materials
1. The Treaty of Washington 1949
- The
Treaty of Washington came into force on 24 August 1949 (“the
1949 Treaty”) and created an alliance called the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (“NATO”) of ten European states
(Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom,
Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Portugal) with Canada and the United
States. In 1952 Greece
and Turkey acceded to the 1949 Treaty, the Federal Republic of
Germany joined in 1955 and Spain also became a member in 1982. These
countries were joined on 12 March 1999 by the Czech Republic, Hungary
and Poland.
- The
essential purpose of NATO is to safeguard the freedom and security of
all its members by political and military means in accordance with
the principles of the UN Charter. Its fundamental operating principle
is that of a common commitment to mutual co-operation among sovereign
states based on the indivisibility of the security of its members.
2. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969
(“the Vienna Convention 1969”)
- Article
31 of the Vienna Convention 1969 is entitled “General rule of
interpretation” and reads, in so far as relevant, as follows:
“1. A treaty shall be interpreted in
good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the
terms of the treaty in their context and in light of its object and
purpose.
...
3. There shall be taken into account,
together with the context:
...
(b) any subsequent practice in the
application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the
parties regarding its interpretation;
(c) any relevant rules of international law
applicable in the relations between the parties.”
- Article
32 is entitled “Supplementary means of interpretation”
and reads as follows:
“Recourse may be had to supplementary means of
interpretation, including the preparatory work of the treaty and the
circumstances of its conclusion, in order to confirm the meaning
resulting from the application of article 31, or to determine the
meaning when the interpretation according to article 31:
(a) leaves the meaning ambiguous or obscure;
(b) leads to a result which is manifestly
absurd.”
- In
its commentary on these Articles, the International Law Commission
noted that Articles 31 and 32 should operate in conjunction, and
would not have the effect of drawing a rigid line between the
“general rule” and the “supplementary means”
of interpretation. At the same time the distinction itself was
justified since the elements of interpretation in Article
31 all relate to the agreement between the parties at the time when
or after it received authentic expression in the text. Preparatory
work did not have the same authentic character “however
valuable it may sometimes be in throwing light on the expression of
agreement in the text” (Yrbk. ILC (1966), ii. 219-220).
3. The drafting history of
Article 1 of the Convention
- The
text prepared by the Committee of the Consultative Assembly of the
Council of Europe on legal and administrative questions provided, in
what became Article 1 of the Convention, that the “member
States shall undertake to ensure to all persons residing within their
territories the rights...”. The Expert Intergovernmental
Committee, which considered the Consultative Assembly’s draft,
decided to replace the reference to “all persons residing
within their territories” with a reference to persons “within
their jurisdiction”. The reasons were noted in the following
extract from the Collected Edition of the Travaux
Préparatoires of the European Convention on Human Rights
(Vol. III, p. 260):
“The Assembly draft had extended the benefits of
the Convention to ‘all persons residing within the territories
of the signatory States’. It seemed to the Committee that the
term ‘residing’ might be considered too restrictive. It
was felt that there were good grounds for extending the benefits of
the Convention to all persons in the territories of the signatory
States, even those who could not be considered as residing there in
the legal sense of the word. The Committee therefore replaced the
term ‘residing’ by the words ‘within their
jurisdiction’ which are also contained in Article 2 of the
Draft Covenant of the United Nations Commission.”
- The
next relevant comment prior to the adoption of Article 1 of the
Convention, made by the Belgian representative on 25 August 1950
during the plenary sitting of the Consultative Assembly, was to the
effect that
“henceforth the right of protection by our States,
by virtue of a formal clause of the Convention, may be exercised with
full force, and without any differentiation or distinction, in favour
of individuals of whatever nationality, who on the territory of any
one of our States, may have had reason to complain that [their]
rights have been violated”.
- The
travaux préparatoires go on to note that the wording of
Article 1 including “within their jurisdiction”, did
not give rise to any further discussion and the text as it was (and
is now) was adopted by the Consultative Assembly on 25 August 1950
without further amendment (the above-cited Collected Edition (Vol.
VI, p. 132).
4. The American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of
Man 1948
- Article
2 of this declaration reads as follows:
“All persons are equal before the law and have the
rights and duties established in this Declaration, without
distinction as to race, sex, language, creed or any other factor.”
- In
its report in the Coard case (Report No. 109/99, case No.
10.951, Coard et al. v. the United States, 29 September 1999,
§§ 37, 39, 41 and 43), the Inter-American Commission of
Human Rights examined complaints about the applicants’
detention and treatment by United States’ forces in the first
days of the military operation in Grenada and commented:
“While the extraterritorial application of the
American Declaration has not been placed at issue by the parties, the
Commission finds it pertinent to note that, under certain
circumstances, the exercise of its jurisdiction over acts with an
extra-territorial locus will not only be consistent with, but
required by, the norms which pertain. The fundamental rights of the
individual are proclaimed in the Americas on the basis of the
principles of equality and non-discrimination – ‘without
distinction as to race, nationality, creed or sex’. ... Given
that individual rights inhere simply by virtue of a person’s
humanity, each American State is obliged to uphold the protected
rights of any person subject to its jurisdiction. While this most
commonly refers to persons within a state’s territory, it may,
under given circumstances, refer to conduct with an extraterritorial
locus where the person concerned is present in the territory of one
state, but subject to the control of another state – usually
through the acts of the latter’s agents abroad. In principle,
the inquiry turns not on the presumed victim’s nationality or
presence within a particular geographic area, but on whether, under
the specific circumstances, the State observed the rights of a person
subject to its authority and control.”
- Article
1 of the American Convention on Human Rights 1978, on which the
substantive jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
is based, reads, in so far as relevant, as follows:
“The States Parties to this Convention undertake
to respect the rights and freedoms recognised herein and to ensure to
all persons subject to their jurisdiction the free and full exercise
of those rights and freedoms, without any discrimination...”
5. The four Geneva Conventions on the Protection of War
Victims 1949
- Article
1 of each of these Conventions (“the Geneva Conventions 1949”)
requires the Contracting Parties to undertake “to respect and
to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances”.
6. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (“CCPR
1966”) and its Optional Protocol 1966
- Article
2 § 1 of CCPR 1966 reads, in so far as relevant, as follows:
“Each State Party to the present Convention
undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its
territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognised in
the present Covenant ...”
The Commission on
Human Rights approved during its sixth session in 1950 a motion to
include the words “within its territory and subject to its”
in Article 2 § 1 of the draft Covenant. Subsequent proposals to
exclude those words were defeated in 1952 and 1963. Subsequently, the
Human Rights Committee has sought to develop, in certain limited
contexts, the Contracting States’ responsibility for the acts
of their agents abroad.
- Article
1 of the Optional Protocol 1966 reads, in so far as relevant, as
follows:
“A State Party to the Covenant that becomes a
Party to the present Protocol recognises the competence of the
Committee to receive and consider communications from individuals
subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by
that State Party of any of the rights set forth in the Covenant. ...”
COMPLAINTS
- The
applicants complain about the bombing of the RTS building on 23 April
1999 by NATO forces and they invoke the following provisions of the
Convention: Article 2 (the right to life), Article 10 (freedom of
expression) and Article 13 (the right to an effective remedy).
THE
LAW
- The
first to the fifth applicants rely on Articles 2, 10 and 13 on their
own behalf and on behalf of their deceased close relatives. The sixth
applicant, injured during the strike, relies on these Articles on his
own behalf. With the consent of the Court, the parties’ written
and oral submissions were limited to the admissibility issues, the
Governments’ further accepting that they would not be arguing
that the complaints were manifestly ill-founded.
- As to the admissibility of the case, the applicants
submit that the application is compatible ratione loci with
the provisions of the Convention because the impugned acts of the
respondent States, which were either in the FRY or on their own
territories but producing effects in the FRY, brought them and their
deceased relatives within the jurisdiction of those States. They also
suggest that the respondent States are severally liable for the
strike despite its having been carried out by NATO forces, and that
they had no effective remedies to exhaust.
- The
Governments dispute the admissibility of the case. They mainly
contend that the application is incompatible ratione personae
with the provisions of the Convention because the applicants did not
fall within the jurisdiction of the respondent States within the
meaning of Article 1 of the Convention. They also maintain that, in
accordance with the “Monetary Gold principle” of
the ICJ, this Court cannot decide the merits of the case as it would
be determining the rights and obligations of the United States, of
Canada and of NATO itself, none of whom are Contracting Parties to
the Convention or, therefore, parties to the present application
(Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943, ICJ Reports 1954, p.
19 as applied in East Timor, ICJ Reports 1995, p. 90).
- The
French Government further argue that the bombardment was not
imputable to the respondent States but to NATO, an organisation with
an international legal personality separate from that of the
respondent States. The Turkish Government made certain submissions as
regards their view of the position in northern Cyprus.
- Finally,
the Hungarian, Italian and Polish Governments submit that the
applicants have failed to exhaust effective remedies available in
those States as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention.
A. Whether the applicants and their deceased relatives
came within the “jurisdiction” of the respondent States
within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention
- This
is the principal basis upon which the Governments contest the
admissibility of the application and the Court will consider first
this question. Article 1 of the Convention reads as follows:
“The High Contracting Parties shall secure to
everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in
Section I of [the] Convention.”
1. The submissions of the respondent Governments
- The
Governments contend that the applicants and their deceased relatives
were not, at the relevant time, within the “jurisdiction”
of the respondent States and that the application is therefore
incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the
Convention.
- As
to the precise meaning of “jurisdiction”, they suggest
that it should be interpreted in accordance with the ordinary and
well-established meaning of that term in public international law.
The exercise of “jurisdiction” therefore involves the
assertion or exercise of legal authority, actual or purported, over
persons owing some form of allegiance to that State or who have been
brought within that State’s control. They also suggest that the
term “jurisdiction” generally entails some form of
structured relationship normally existing over a period of time.
- They
maintain that they are supported in this respect by the jurisprudence
of the Court which has applied this notion of jurisdiction to confirm
that certain individuals affected by acts of a respondent State
outside of its territory can be considered to fall within its
jurisdiction because there was an exercise of some form of legal
authority by the relevant State over them. The arrest and detention
of the applicants outside of the territory of the respondent State in
the Issa and Öcalan cases (Issa and Others v.
Turkey, (dec.), no. 31821/96, 30 May 2000, unreported and Öcalan
v. Turkey, (dec.), no. 46221/99, 14 December 2000, unreported)
constituted, according to the Governments, a classic exercise of such
legal authority or jurisdiction over those persons by military forces
on foreign soil. Jurisdiction in the Xhavara case which
concerned the alleged deliberate striking of an Albanian ship by an
Italian naval vessel 35 nautical miles off the coast of Italy
(Xhavara and Others v. Italy and Albania, (dec.), no.
39473/98, 11 January 2001, unreported) was shared by written
agreement between the respondent States. The Governments consider
that they are also supported in their interpretation of jurisdiction
by the travaux préparatoires and by State practice in
applying the Convention since its ratification by them. They refer,
in this latter respect, to the lack of derogations under Article 15
of the Convention in respect of military operations in which the
Contracting States participated outside of their territories.
- The
Governments conclude that it is clear that the conduct of which the
applicants complain could not be described as the exercise of such
legal authority or competence.
- Moreover, the Governments go on to take issue with the
applicants’ principal submissions as to the meaning of
jurisdiction in Article 1 of the Convention namely, that the positive
obligation to protect in Article 1 of the Convention applies
proportionately to the control exercised.
- In
the first place, the Governments consider that the very text of
Article 1 does not support this interpretation. Had the drafters
wished for what is effectively a “cause-and-effect” type
of responsibility, they could have adopted wording similar to that of
Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions 1949 (cited above at § 25).
In any event, the applicants’ interpretation of jurisdiction
would invert and divide the positive obligation on Contracting States
to secure the substantive rights in a manner never contemplated by
Article 1 of the Convention.
- Secondly,
they consider the applicants’ reliance on Article 15 in support
of their expansive interpretation of Article 1 to be mistaken and
that Article 15, in fact, supports the Governments’ own
position. The Governments argue that there is nothing in the text or
application of Article
15 of the Convention to imply, as the
applicants wrongly assume, that Article 15 § 2 refers to “war”
or “public emergency” situations outside as well as
inside the territories of the Contracting States. Accordingly,
Article 15 § 2 does not strengthen the applicants’ broad
interpretation of Article 1 of the Convention.
- Thirdly,
and as to the applicants’ suggestion that the citizens of the
FRY would be left without a Convention remedy, the Governments recall
that a finding that Turkey was not responsible under the Convention
in the northern Cyprus cases would have deprived the inhabitants of
that territory of the benefit of the Convention rights they would
otherwise have enjoyed (see, Loizidou v. Turkey judgment of 23 March
1995 (preliminary objections), Series A no. 310, Loizidou v.
Turkey judgment of 18 December 1996 (Merits), Reports of
Judgments and Decisions 1996-VI, no. 26 and Cyprus v. Turkey
[GC], no. 25781/94, ECHR 2001). In the present case, the
Governments note that the FRY was not and is not a party to the
Convention and its inhabitants had no existing rights under the
Convention.
- Fourthly,
the Governments strongly dispute the applicants’ assertions as
to the risk involved in not rendering respondent States participating
in such military missions accountable under the Convention. The
Governments contend that it is rather the applicants’ novel
“cause-and-effect” theory of extra-territorial
jurisdiction that would have serious international consequences. Such
a theory would, when added to the applicants’ assertion
concerning the several liability of all respondent States as members
of NATO, seriously distort the purpose and scheme of the Convention.
In particular, it would have serious consequences for international
military collective action as it would render the Court
competent to review the participation of Contracting States in
military missions all over the world in circumstances when it would
be impossible for those States to secure any of the Convention rights
to the inhabitants of those territories and even in situations where
a Contracting State had no active part in the relevant mission. The
resulting Convention exposure would, according to the Governments,
risk undermining significantly the States’ participation in
such missions and would, in any event, result in far more protective
derogations under Article 15 of the Convention. In addition, they
suggest that international humanitarian law, the ICTY and, most
recently, the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) exist
to regulate such State conduct.
- Finally,
the Governments also contest the applicants’ alternative
theories of State responsibility under Article 1 of the Convention.
As to their argument concerning the alleged control of the airspace
over Belgrade by NATO forces, the Governments deny such control and,
in any event, dispute that any such control could be equated with the
territorial control of the nature and extent, identified in the
above-cited judgments concerning northern Cyprus, which results in
the exercise of effective control or of legal authority. The
Governments further consider the applicants’ comparison of the
present case with the Soering case to be fundamentally flawed
(Soering v. the United Kingdom judgment of 7 July 1989, Series A no.
161). At the time the impugned decision was to be taken in respect of
Mr Soering’s extradition, he was detained on the territory of
the respondent State, a situation constituting a classic exercise of
legal authority over an individual to whom the State could secure the
full range of Convention rights.
- In
sum, the Governments submit that the applicants and their deceased
relatives did not fall within the jurisdiction of the respondent
States and that their application is, therefore, incompatible ratione
personae with the provisions of the Convention.
2. The submissions of the applicants
- The
applicants consider the application to be compatible ratione loci
with the provisions of the Convention because they were brought
within the jurisdiction of the respondent States by the RTS strike.
In particular, they suggest that the determination of “jurisdiction”
can be done by adapting the “effective control” criteria
developed in the above-cited Loizidou judgments
(preliminary objections and merits) so that the extent
of the positive obligation under Article 1 of the Convention to
secure Convention rights would be proportionate to the level of
control in fact exercised. They consider that this approach to
jurisdiction in Article 1 would provide manageable criteria by which
the Court could deal with future complaints arising out of comparable
circumstances.
- Accordingly,
when, as in the above-noted Loizidou judgments (preliminary
objections and merits), the Turkish forces were found to
have had effective control of northern Cyprus, it was appropriate to
consider Turkey obliged to vindicate the full range of Convention
rights in that area. However, when the respondent States strike a
target outside their territory, they are not obliged to do the
impossible (secure the full range of Convention rights) but rather
are held accountable for those Convention rights within their control
in the situation in question.
- The
applicants maintain that this approach is entirely consistent with
the Convention jurisprudence to date, and they rely, in particular,
on the admissibility decisions in the above-cited cases of Issa,
Xhavara and Öcalan together with the admissibility
decision in the Ilascu case (Ilascu v. Moldova and the
Russian Federation, (dec.), no. 48787/99, 4 July 2001,
unreported). They consider it also consistent with the interpretation
of similar phrases by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights
(the Report in the Coard case, at § 23 above). Citing one
case of the Human Rights Committee, they contend that that Committee
has reached consistent conclusions as regards Article 2 § 1 of
the CCPR 1966 and Article 1 of its Optional Protocol.
- They
further suggest that support for their approach to the concept of
“jurisdiction” is to be found in the text and structure
of the Convention and, in particular, in Article 15. They argue that
Article 15 would be rendered meaningless if it did not also apply to
extra-territorial war or emergencies. A State is therefore required
to make a derogation under Article 15 because, without that
derogation, the Convention applies even during such conflicts.
- As
to the Governments’ reliance on the travaux préparatoires,
they point out that this is not a source of primary or definitive
evidence as to the meaning to be accorded to the use of jurisdiction
in Article 1 of the Convention. Indeed, they note that the “legal
authority” and “structured relationship” which the
Governments submit are essential elements of jurisdiction are not
mentioned in the travaux préparatoires.
- They reject the Governments’ suggestion that
their interpretation of Article 1 would be a dangerous development.
The present case is not about an accident or omission during a UN
peace-keeping mission or about rogue soldiers. Rather it concerns a
deliberate act approved by each of the respondent States and executed
as planned. Indeed, the applicants suggest that it would be dangerous
not to render States accountable for the violations of the Convention
arising from this type of State action. In emphasising the
pre-eminence of the right to life and the role of the Convention as
an instrument for European public order, they stress that a failure
to find the respondent States responsible would leave these
applicants without a remedy and the respondent States’ armies
free to act with impunity. The ICJ is not open to an application from
individuals, the ICTY adjudicates on the responsibility of
individuals for serious war crimes and the ICC has not yet been
established.
- Alternatively,
the applicants argue that, given the size of the air operation and
the relatively few air casualties, NATO’s control over the
airspace was nearly as complete as Turkey’s control over the
territory of northern Cyprus. While it was a control limited in scope
(airspace only), the
Article 1 positive obligation could be
similarly limited. They consider that the concepts of “effective
control” and “jurisdiction” must be flexible enough
to take account of the availability and use of modern precision
weapons which allow extra-territorial action of great precision and
impact without the need for ground troops. Given such modern
advances, reliance on the difference between air attacks and ground
troops has become unrealistic.
- Alternatively,
the applicants compare the circumstances of the present case to those
of the above-cited Soering case, arguing that the impugned act was,
in fact, the extra-territorial effect of prior decisions, to strike
RTS and to launch the missile, which decisions had been taken on the
territory of the respondent State or States. They suggest therefore
that jurisdiction can be established for the same reasons it was in
the Soering case.
3. The Court’s assessment
- The
Court notes that the real connection between the applicants and the
respondent States is the impugned act which, wherever decided, was
performed, or had effects, outside of the territory of those States
(“the extra-territorial act”). It considers that the
essential question to be examined therefore is whether the applicants
and their deceased relatives were, as a
result of that extra-territorial act, capable of falling within the
jurisdiction of the respondent States (Drozd and Janousek v. France
and Spain, judgment of 26 June 1992, Series A no. 240, § 91, the
above-cited Loizidou judgments (preliminary objections and
merits), at § 64 and § 56 respectively, and the
Cyprus v. Turkey judgment, cited above, at § 80).
(a) The applicable rules of interpretation
- The
Court recalls that the Convention must be interpreted in the light of
the rules set out in the Vienna Convention 1969 (Golder v. the United
Kingdom judgment of 21 February 1975, Series A no. 18, § 29).
- It
will, therefore, seek to ascertain the ordinary meaning to be given
to the phrase “within their jurisdiction” in its context
and in the light of the object and purpose of the Convention (Article
31 § 1 of the Vienna Convention 1969 and, amongst other
authorities, Johnston and Others v. Ireland judgment of 18 December
1986, Series A no. 112, § 51). The Court will also consider
“any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty
which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its
interpretation” (Article 31 § 3 (b) of the Vienna
Convention 1969 and the above-cited Loizidou judgment (preliminary
objections), at § 73).
- Moreover,
Article 31 § 3 (c) indicates that account is to be taken of “any
relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations
between the parties”. More generally, the Court recalls that
the principles underlying the Convention cannot be interpreted and
applied in a vacuum. The Court must also take into account any
relevant rules of international law when examining questions
concerning its jurisdiction and, consequently, determine State
responsibility in conformity with the governing principles of
international law, although it must remain mindful of the
Convention’s special character as a human rights treaty (the
above-cited Loizidou judgment (merits), at §§ 43 and
52). The Convention should be interpreted as far as possible in
harmony with other principles of international law of which it forms
part (Al-Adsani v. the United Kingdom, [GC], no. 35763, §
60, to be reported in ECHR 2001).
- It
is further recalled that the travaux préparatoires can
also be consulted with a view to confirming any meaning resulting
from the application of Article 31 of the Vienna Convention 1969 or
to determining the meaning when the interpretation under Article 31
of the Vienna Convention 1969 leaves the meaning “ambiguous or
obscure” or leads to a result which is “manifestly absurd
or unreasonable” (Article 32). The Court has also noted the ILC
commentary on the relationship between the rules of interpretation
codified in those Articles 31 and 32 (the text of those Articles and
a summary of the ILC commentary is set out above at §§
16-18 above).
(b) The meaning of the words “within
their jurisdiction”
- As
to the “ordinary meaning” of the relevant term in Article
1 of the Convention, the Court is satisfied that, from the standpoint
of public international law, the jurisdictional competence of a State
is primarily territorial. While international law does not exclude a
State’s exercise of jurisdiction extra-territorially, the
suggested bases of such jurisdiction (including nationality, flag,
diplomatic and consular relations, effect, protection, passive
personality and universality) are, as a general rule, defined and
limited by the sovereign territorial rights of the other relevant
States (Mann, “The Doctrine of Jurisdiction in International
Law”, RdC, 1964, Vol. 1; Mann, “The Doctrine of
Jurisdiction in International Law, Twenty Years Later”,
RdC, 1984, Vol. 1; Bernhardt, Encyclopaedia of Public
International Law, Edition 1997, Vol. 3, pp. 55-59 “Jurisdiction
of States” and Edition 1995, Vol. 2, pp. 337-343
“Extra-territorial Effects of Administrative, Judicial and
Legislative Acts”; Oppenheim’s International Law,
9th Edition 1992 (Jennings and Watts), Vol. 1, § 137;
P.M. Dupuy, Droit International Public, 4th Edition 1998, p.
61; and Brownlie, Principles of International Law, 5th
Edition 1998, pp. 287, 301 and 312-314).
- Accordingly,
for example, a State’s competence to exercise jurisdiction over
its own nationals abroad is subordinate to that State’s and
other States’ territorial competence (Higgins, Problems and
Process (1994), at p. 73; and Nguyen Quoc Dinh, Droit
International Public, 6th Edition 1999 (Daillier and Pellet), p.
500). In addition, a State may not actually exercise jurisdiction on
the territory of another without the latter’s consent,
invitation or acquiescence, unless the former is an occupying State
in which case it can be found to exercise jurisdiction in that
territory, at least in certain respects (Bernhardt, cited above, Vol.
3 at p. 59 and Vol. 2 at pp. 338-340; Oppenheim, cited above, at §
137; P.M. Dupuy, cited above, at pp. 64-65; Brownlie, cited above, at
p. 313; Cassese, International Law, 2001, p. 89; and, most
recently, the “Report on the Preferential Treatment of
National Minorities by their Kin-States” adopted by the
Venice Commission at its 48th Plenary Meeting, Venice, 19-20 October
2001).
- The
Court is of the view, therefore, that Article 1 of the Convention
must be considered to reflect this ordinary and essentially
territorial notion of jurisdiction, other bases of jurisdiction being
exceptional and requiring special justification in the particular
circumstances of each case (see, mutatis mutandis and in
general, Select Committee of Experts on Extraterritorial Criminal
Jurisdiction, European Committee on Crime Problems, Council of
Europe, “Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction”,
Report published in 1990, at pp. 8-30).
- The Court finds State practice in the application of
the Convention since its ratification to be indicative of a lack of
any apprehension on the part of the Contracting States of their
extra-territorial responsibility in contexts similar to the present
case. Although there have been a number of military missions
involving Contracting States acting extra-territorially since their
ratification of the Convention (inter alia, in the Gulf, in
Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the FRY), no State has indicated a
belief that its extra-territorial actions involved an exercise of
jurisdiction within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention by
making a derogation pursuant to Article 15 of the Convention. The
existing derogations were lodged by Turkey and the United Kingdom
in respect of certain internal conflicts (in south-east Turkey and
Northern Ireland, respectively) and the Court does not find any basis
upon which to accept the applicants’ suggestion that Article 15
covers all “war” and “public emergency”
situations generally, whether obtaining inside or outside the
territory of the Contracting State. Indeed, Article 15 itself is to
be read subject to the “jurisdiction” limitation
enumerated in Article 1 of the Convention.
- Finally,
the Court finds clear confirmation of this essentially territorial
notion of jurisdiction in the travaux préparatoires which
demonstrate that the Expert Intergovernmental Committee replaced the
words “all persons residing within their territories”
with a reference to persons “within their jurisdiction”
with a view to expanding the Convention’s application to others
who may not reside, in a legal sense, but who are, nevertheless, on
the territory of the Contracting States (§ 19 above).
- It
is true that the notion of the Convention being a living instrument
to be interpreted in light of present-day conditions is firmly rooted
in the Court’s case-law. The Court has applied that approach
not only to the Convention’s substantive provisions (for
example, the Soering judgment cited above, at § 102; the
Dudgeon v. the United Kingdom judgment of 22 October 1981, Series A
no. 45; the X, Y and Z v. the United Kingdom judgment of 22 April
1997, Reports 1997-II; V. v. the United Kingdom [GC],
no. 24888/94, § 72, ECHR 1999-IX; and Matthews v. the United
Kingdom [GC], no. 24833/94, § 39, ECHR 1999-I) but more
relevantly to its interpretation of former Articles 25 and 46
concerning the recognition by a Contracting State of the competence
of the Convention organs (the above-cited Loizidou judgment
(preliminary objections), at § 71). The Court
concluded in the latter judgment that former Articles 25 and 46 of
the
Convention could not be interpreted solely in accordance with the
intentions of their authors expressed more than forty years
previously to the extent that, even if it had been established that
the restrictions at issue were considered permissible under Articles
25 and 46 when the Convention was adopted by a minority of the then
Contracting Parties, such evidence “could not be decisive”.
- However,
the scope of Article 1, at issue in the present case, is
determinative of the very scope of the Contracting Parties’
positive obligations and, as such, of the scope and reach of the
entire Convention system of human rights’ protection as opposed
to the question, under discussion in the Loizidou case (preliminary
objections), of the competence of the Convention organs to
examine a case. In any event, the extracts from the travaux
préparatoires detailed above constitute a clear indication
of the intended meaning of Article 1 of the Convention which cannot
be ignored. The Court would emphasise that it is not interpreting
Article 1 “solely” in accordance with the travaux
préparatoires or finding those travaux “decisive”;
rather this preparatory material constitutes clear confirmatory
evidence of the ordinary meaning of Article 1 of the Convention as
already identified by the Court (Article 32 of the Vienna Convention
1969).
66. Accordingly,
and as the Court stated in the Soering case:
“Article 1 sets a limit, notably territorial, on
the reach of the Convention. In particular, the engagement undertaken
by a Contracting State is confined to ‘securing’
(‘reconnaître’ in the French text) the
listed rights and freedoms to persons within its own ‘jurisdiction’.
Further, the Convention does not govern the actions of States not
Parties to it, nor does it purport to be a means of requiring the
Contracting States to impose Convention standards on other States.”
(c) Extra-territorial acts recognised as
constituting an exercise of jurisdiction
- In
keeping with the essentially territorial notion of jurisdiction, the
Court has accepted only in exceptional cases that acts of the
Contracting States performed, or producing effects, outside their
territories can constitute an exercise of jurisdiction by them within
the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention.
- Reference
has been made in the Court’s case-law, as an example of
jurisdiction “not restricted to the national territory”
of the respondent State (the Loizidou judgment (preliminary
objections), at § 62), to situations where the extradition
or expulsion of a person by a Contracting State may give rise to an
issue under Articles 2 and/or 3 (or, exceptionally, under Articles 5
and or 6) and hence engage the responsibility of that State under the
Convention (the above-cited Soering case, at § 91, Cruz Varas
and Others v. Sweden judgment of 20 March 1991, Series A no. 201, §§
69 and
70, and the Vilvarajah and Others v. the United Kingdom judgment of
30 October 1991, Series A no. 215, § 103).
However, the Court
notes that liability is incurred in such cases by an action of the
respondent State concerning a person while he or she is on its
territory, clearly within its jurisdiction, and that such cases do
not concern the actual exercise of a State’s competence or
jurisdiction abroad (see also, the above-cited Al-Adsani judgment,
at § 39).
- In
addition, a further example noted at paragraph 62 of the Loizidou
judgment (preliminary objections) was the Drozd and Janousek
case where, citing a number of admissibility decisions by the
Commission, the Court accepted that the responsibility of Contracting
Parties (France and Spain) could, in principle, be engaged because of
acts of their authorities (judges) which produced effects or were
performed outside their own territory (the above-cited Drozd and
Janousek judgment, at § 91). In that case, the impugned acts
could not, in the circumstances, be attributed to the respondent
States because the judges in question were not acting in their
capacity as French or Spanish judges and as the Andorran courts
functioned independently of the respondent States.
- Moreover,
in that first Loizidou judgment (preliminary objections), the
Court found that, bearing in mind the object and purpose of the
Convention, the responsibility of a Contracting Party was capable of
being engaged when as a consequence of military action (lawful or
unlawful) it exercised effective control of an area outside its
national territory. The obligation to secure, in such an area, the
Convention rights and freedoms was found to derive from the fact of
such control whether it was exercised directly, through the
respondent State’s armed forces, or through a subordinate local
administration. The Court concluded that the acts of which the
applicant complained were capable of falling within Turkish
jurisdiction within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention.
On the merits, the
Court found that it was not necessary to determine whether Turkey
actually exercised detailed control over the policies and actions of
the authorities of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”
(“TRNC”). It was obvious from the large number of troops
engaged in active duties in northern Cyprus that Turkey’s army
exercised “effective overall control over that part of the
island”. Such control, according to the relevant test and in
the circumstances of the case, was found to entail the responsibility
of Turkey for the policies and actions of the “TRNC”. The
Court concluded that those affected by such policies or actions
therefore came within the ”jurisdiction” of Turkey for
the purposes of Article 1 of the Convention. Turkey’s
obligation to secure the rights and freedoms set out in the
Convention was found therefore to extend to northern Cyprus.
In its subsequent Cyprus v. Turkey judgment (cited above), the
Court added that since Turkey had such “effective control”,
its responsibility could not be confined to the acts of its own
agents therein but was engaged by the acts of the local
administration which survived by virtue of Turkish support. Turkey’s
“jurisdiction” under Article 1 was therefore considered
to extend to securing the entire range of substantive Convention
rights in northern Cyprus.
- In
sum, the case-law of the Court demonstrates that its recognition of
the exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction by a Contracting State
is exceptional: it has done so when the respondent State, through the
effective control of the relevant territory and its inhabitants
abroad as a consequence of military occupation or through the
consent, invitation or acquiescence of the Government of that
territory, exercises all or some of the public powers normally to be
exercised by that Government.
- In
line with this approach, the Court has recently found that the
participation of a State in the defence of proceedings against it in
another State does not, without more, amount to an exercise of
extra-territorial jurisdiction (McElhinney v. Ireland and the
United Kingdom (dec.), no. 31253/96, p. 7, 9 February 2000,
unpublished). The Court said:
“In so far as the applicant complains under
Article 6 ... about the stance taken by the Government of the United
Kingdom in the Irish proceedings, the Court does not consider it
necessary to address in the abstract the question of whether the
actions of a Government as a litigant before the courts of another
Contracting State can engage their responsibility under Article 6 ...
The Court considers that, in the particular circumstances of the
case, the fact that the United Kingdom Government raised the defence
of sovereign immunity before the Irish courts, where the applicant
had decided to sue, does not suffice to bring him within the
jurisdiction of the United Kingdom within the meaning of Article 1 of
the Convention.”
- Additionally,
the Court notes that other recognised instances of the
extra-territorial exercise of jurisdiction by a State include cases
involving the activities of its diplomatic or consular agents abroad
and on board craft and vessels registered in, or flying the flag of,
that State. In these specific situations, customary international law
and treaty provisions have recognised the extra-territorial exercise
of jurisdiction by the relevant State.
(d) Were the present applicants therefore
capable of coming within the “jurisdiction” of the
respondent States?
- The
applicants maintain that the bombing of RTS by the respondent States
constitutes yet a further example of an extra-territorial act which
can be accommodated by the notion of “jurisdiction” in
Article 1 of the Convention, and are thereby proposing a further
specification of the ordinary meaning of the term “jurisdiction”
in Article 1 of the Convention. The Court must be satisfied that
equally exceptional circumstances exist in the present case which
could amount to the extra-territorial exercise of jurisdiction by a
Contracting State.
- In
the first place, the applicants suggest a specific application of the
“effective control” criteria developed in the northern
Cyprus cases. They claim that the positive obligation under Article 1
extends to securing the Convention rights in a manner proportionate
to the level of control exercised in any given extra-territorial
situation. The Governments contend that this amounts to a
“cause-and-effect” notion of jurisdiction not
contemplated by or appropriate to Article 1 of the Convention. The
Court considers that the applicants’ submission is tantamount
to arguing that anyone adversely affected by an act imputable to a
Contracting State, wherever in the world that act may have been
committed or its consequences felt, is thereby brought within the
jurisdiction of that State for the purpose of Article 1 of the
Convention.
The Court is
inclined to agree with the Governments’ submission that the
text of Article 1 does not accommodate such an approach to
“jurisdiction”. Admittedly, the applicants accept that
jurisdiction, and any consequent State Convention responsibility,
would be limited in the circumstances to the commission and
consequences of that particular act. However, the Court is of the
view that the wording of Article 1 does not provide any support for
the applicants’ suggestion that the positive obligation in
Article 1 to secure “the rights and freedoms defined in Section
I of this Convention” can be divided and tailored in accordance
with the particular circumstances of the extra-territorial act in
question and, it considers its view in this respect supported by the
text of Article 19 of the Convention. Indeed the applicants’
approach does not explain the application of the words “within
their jurisdiction” in Article 1 and it even goes so far as to
render those words superfluous and devoid of any purpose. Had the
drafters of the Convention wished to ensure jurisdiction as extensive
as that advocated by the applicants, they could have adopted a text
the same as or similar to the
contemporaneous Articles 1 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949
(see § 25 above).
Furthermore, the
applicants’ notion of jurisdiction equates the determination of
whether an individual falls within the jurisdiction of a Contracting
State with the question of whether that person can be considered to
be a victim of a violation of rights guaranteed by the Convention.
These are separate and distinct admissibility conditions, each of
which has to be satisfied in the afore-mentioned order, before an
individual can invoke the Convention provisions against a Contracting
State.
- Secondly,
the applicants’ alternative suggestion is that the limited
scope of the airspace control only circumscribed the scope of the
respondent States’ positive obligation to protect the
applicants and did not exclude it. The Court finds this to be
essentially the same argument as their principal proposition and
rejects it for the same reasons.
- Thirdly,
the applicants make a further alternative argument in favour of the
respondent States’ jurisdiction based on a comparison with the
Soering case (cited above). The Court does not find this convincing
given the fundamental differences between that case and the present
as already noted at paragraph 68 above.
- Fourthly,
the Court does not find it necessary to pronounce on the specific
meaning to be attributed in various contexts to the allegedly similar
jurisdiction provisions in the international instruments to which the
applicants refer because it is not convinced by the applicants’
specific submissions in these respects (see § 48 above). It
notes that Article 2 of the American Declaration on the Rights and
Duties of Man 1948 referred to in the above-cited Coard Report
of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (§ 23 above),
contains no explicit limitation of jurisdiction. In addition, and as
to Article 2 § 1 the CCPR 1966 (§ 26 above), as early as
1950 the drafters had definitively and specifically confined its
territorial scope and it is difficult to suggest that exceptional
recognition by the Human Rights Committee of certain instances of
extra-territorial jurisdiction (and the applicants give one example
only) displaces in any way the territorial jurisdiction expressly
conferred by that Article of the CCPR 1966 or explains the precise
meaning of “jurisdiction” in Article 1 of its
Optional Protocol 1966 (§ 27 above). While the text of Article 1
of the American Convention on Human Rights 1978 (§ 24 above)
contains a jurisdiction condition similar to Article 1 of the
European Convention, no
relevant case-law on the former provision was cited before this Court
by the applicants.
- Fifthly
and more generally, the applicants maintain that any failure to
accept that they fell within the jurisdiction of the respondent
States would defeat the ordre public mission of the Convention
and leave a regrettable vacuum in the Convention system of human
rights’ protection.
- The
Court’s obligation, in this respect, is to have regard to the
special character of the Convention as a constitutional instrument of
European public order for the protection of individual human
beings and its role, as set out in Article 19 of the Convention, is
to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken
by the Contracting Parties (the above-cited Loizidou judgment
(preliminary objections), at § 93). It is therefore
difficult to contend that a failure to accept the extra-territorial
jurisdiction of the respondent States would fall foul of the
Convention’s ordre public objective, which itself
underlines the essentially regional vocation of the Convention
system, or of Article 19 of the Convention which does not shed any
particular light on the territorial ambit of that system.
It is true that, in
its above-cited Cyprus v. Turkey judgment (at § 78), the
Court was conscious of the need to avoid “a regrettable vacuum
in the system of human-rights protection” in northern Cyprus.
However, and as noted by the Governments, that comment related to an
entirely different situation to the present: the inhabitants of
northern Cyprus would have found themselves excluded from the
benefits of the Convention safeguards and system which they had
previously enjoyed, by Turkey’s “effective control”
of the territory and by the accompanying inability of the Cypriot
Government, as a Contracting State, to fulfil the obligations it had
undertaken under the Convention.
In short, the
Convention is a multi-lateral treaty operating, subject to Article 56
of the Convention,
in an essentially regional context and notably in the legal space
(espace juridique) of the Contracting States. The FRY clearly
does not fall within this legal space. The Convention was not
designed to be applied throughout the world, even in respect of the
conduct of Contracting States. Accordingly, the desirability of
avoiding a gap or vacuum in human rights’ protection has so far
been relied on by the Court in favour of establishing jurisdiction
only when the territory in question was one that, but for the
specific circumstances, would normally be covered by the Convention.
- Finally, the applicants relied, in particular, on the
admissibility decisions of the Court in the above-cited Issa
and Öcalan cases. It is true that the Court has declared
both of these cases admissible and that they include certain
complaints about alleged actions by Turkish agents outside Turkish
territory. However, in neither of those cases was the issue of
jurisdiction raised by the respondent Government or addressed in the
admissibility decisions and in any event the merits of those cases
remain to be decided. Similarly, no jurisdiction objection is
recorded in the decision leading to the inadmissibility of the
Xhavara case to which the applicants also referred (cited
above); at any rate, the applicants do not dispute the Governments’
evidence about the sharing by prior written agreement of jurisdiction
between Albania and Italy. The Ilascu case, also referred to
by the applicants and cited above, concerns allegations that Russian
forces control part of the territory of Moldova, an issue to be
decided definitively on the merits of that case. Accordingly, these
cases do not provide any support for the applicants’
interpretation of the jurisdiction of Contracting States within the
meaning of Article 1 of the Convention.
4. The Court’s conclusion
- The
Court is not therefore persuaded that there was any jurisdictional
link between the persons who were victims of the act complained of
and the respondent States. Accordingly, it is not satisfied that the
applicants and their deceased relatives were capable of coming within
the jurisdiction of the respondent States on account of the
extra-territorial act in question.
B. Remaining admissibility issues
- In light of the above conclusion, the Court considers
that it is not necessary to examine the remaining submissions of the
parties on the admissibility of the application.
These questions
included the alleged several liability of the respondent States for
an act carried out by an international organisation of which they are
members, whether the applicants had exhausted effective remedies
available to them within the meaning of Article 35 § 1 of the
Convention and whether the Court was competent to consider the case
given the principles established by the above-cited Monetary Gold
judgment of the ICJ.
C. Summary and conclusion
- Accordingly,
the Court concludes that the impugned action of the respondent States
does not engage their Convention responsibility and that it is not
therefore necessary to consider the other admissibility issues raised
by the parties.
- The
application must therefore be declared incompatible with the
provisions of the Convention and, as such, inadmissible pursuant to
Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Paul
Mahoney Luzius
wildhaber
Registrar President
