4 Legal Acts, 4.4 Youssef Nada v State Secretariat for Economic Affairs and Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Administrative Appeal Judgment, Case No. 1A 45/2007, Switzerland, Federal Tribunal, 14 November 2007, 133 BGE II 450; ILDC 461 (CH2007)

Subject(s):

Terrorism — Economic sanctions — International organizations, practice and procedure — Responsibility of international organizations

This case-note discusses the pertinent aspects of the Swiss Federal Tribunal’s decision in the Nada case, where the Tribunal was invited to review sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council against Youssef Nada. In a decision closely mirroring the approach of the General Court of the European Union (back then still called the Court of First Instance) in the first Kadi case, the Tribunal accepted to review Security Council sanctions only against the high threshold of jus cogens, and confirmed the legality of the sanctions, leading Nada to bring a case against Switzerland before the European Court of Human Rights.