PIL Discussion Group: Overlapping Individual and Interstate Claims: Recent Trends

This year's judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia exemplifies a recent trend in which interstate claims are increasingly being brought before international courts and tribunals concerning alleged large-scale damage to citizens, in circumstances in which the affected individuals have themselves also brought international claims. The Court acknowledges, at the end of its judgment, the need to have regard to other ongoing mechanisms designed to address the situation at issue, including individual claims mechanisms, in its decisions on reparation. However, this simple statement masks the significant complexity to which situations of overlapping individual and interstate claims give rise, including how to address sometimes conflicting policy considerations concerning the avoidance of multiplicity, the protection of individual autonomy, and the representative character of the State. This presentation will address how international law regulates such questions - and the practical implications for deciding overlapping individual and interstate claims.  

Dr Jessica Howley holds BCL, MPhil and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, focusing on questions of public international law. She also holds a BA/LLB from the University of Queensland. She has worked as a Legal Adviser at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, a Legal Officer at the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, an Associate Legal Officer at the International Court of Justice, and an Associate to a Justice of the High Court of Australia. Her first monograph, Overlapping Individual and Interstate Claims in International Law, was published by Oxford University Press in 2024.