Confederation of Christian Trade Unions and General Federation of Labour of Belgium v United States

Labour Court of Appeal Brussels, Confederation of Christian Trade Unions and General Federation of Labour of Belgium v United States, Nr. 2010/AB/1214, 3 May 2012
ECLI:BE:CTBRL:2012:ARR.20120503.14

The jurisdictional immunity of states is a rule of customary international law that prohibits the jurisdictions of one state from exercising its jurisdictional power over another state that has not consented. However, this immunity is limited: it concerns acts relating to sovereignty, not administration. In principle, the states may not invoke jurisdictional immunity before a court of another state in proceedings relating to employment contracts. However, no exception to the states’ jurisdictional immunity is provided for collective labor relations. Disputes concerning the regulations on the establishment of works councils are collective and not individual. The primacy of access to justice (Article 6 of the ECHR) over the rule of jurisdictional immunity and immunity from execution presupposes that the person against whom the immunity is asserted does not have other reasonable means of effectively obtaining the protection of the rights guaranteed to him by the ECHR. What matters in this regard is not that an action can be brought in the state of residence of the plaintiffs or that certainty is provided as to the application of the law of that state by the foreign jurisdiction, but that that jurisdiction (or the body of the international organization to which an internal action can be brought, as in the cases submitted to the Supreme Court) provides the guarantees of impartiality and independence of the court.


Western European Union v S. M.

Belgian Supreme Court, Western European Union v S. M., Nr. S.04.0129.F, 21 December 2009
ECLI:BE:CASS:2009:ARR.20091221.7

The assertion that immunity is on the same level as the ECHR, which considers access to the courts to be a fundamental right, must be made with the necessary caution. The international organisation is an actor of international law, whereas the proper administration of justice takes place -in principle- within the State. Moreover, international organisations are not party to international instruments such as the ECHR. Of course, this does not mean that the principles contained in international human rights treaties are not applicable to international organisations. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court is of the opinion that the judge who establishes that a conflict has arisen between two norms of international law that also apply in the internal legal order (access to the courts and immunity) and that are invoked respectively by the parties in the dispute, may not give precedence to one norm over the other.


Secretariat of the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP Group) v B.D.

Supreme Court, ACP Group v B.D., Nr. C.07.0407.F, 21 December 2009

In its judgment of 21 December 2009, the Belgian Supreme Court rejects an appeal by the Secretariat of the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (the ACP Group), in which it claimed that the Brussels Court of Appeal had disregarded its immunity from execution in contravention of Protocol No. 3 to the Lomé IV Convention. According to the Supreme Court, provisions granting immunity to international organizations normally do not constitute an impermissible restriction of Article 6 ECHR. However, the proportionality of these restrictions must be examined on a case-by-case basis, having regard to the availability of alternative means of redress for the person against whom the immunity is invoked. In the present case, the contested judgment had found that no such alternative means of redress were present. Accordingly, the contested judgment had duly motivated why the immunity from execution as invoked by the ACP Group was incompatible with Article 6.1 ECHR.