Europos Tarybos vaidmuo stiprinant valstybės imuniteto doktrinos teisiškumą

ENThere have always been doubts concerning the legal quality of the international law of state immunity. Some countries deny that the state immunity is really an international law, as opposite to a matter of grace, comity or politics. A number of countries simply ignore the international legal nature of state immunity. The legal quality of the doctrine can be assessed based on the criteria that have been proposed by the 'international law as law' debate. The formalistic assessment criteria are binding rules of identifying, creating, adjudicating and enforcing the state immunity doctrine. The pragmatic ones are alternative means to ensure the doctrines certainty, dynamics and efficiency. The Council of Europe has enhanced the legal quality of the doctrine of state immunity in a few ways. First, the Council of Europe codified, by way of the European Convention on State Immunity (1972), relevant international customs.The case law of the European Court of Human Rights established by the Council of Europe shed light on the content of international customary law too. Thus, legal certainty has been increased in the area. Second, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights revealed that inappropriate application of state immunity can lead to a violation of the right of access to court under Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. To this end, the European Convention on Human Rights can be used as a tool to adjudicate and enforce the matters of state immunity Thus, efficiency of the state immunity doctrine has been increased on a regional basis. The said contributions by the Council of Europe are specifically relevant to the Lithuanian jurisdiction, where statutory regulation on state immunity is absent and the international legal nature of state immunity is not acknowledged.