 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the second day of our ECB legal conference. I have the honor this morning to chair the third panel on Central Bank Communities and International Sanctions. I'm today replacing the president, who has a keen interest in this topic, and therefore will join us soon, actually, in the room. But having taken a clear position on some of these issues, prefers not to be part of a debate that she wants to be totally open and candid. So that's the reason why you have to settle for me today. I would like to try to frame a little bit the discussion. Why this panel? Why is this relevant today? Now, for many years, the law of immunity has been one of the most controversial topics among international lawyers. You just need to follow the long saga between Italy and Germany on whether immunities can be used as a defense, even in cases where this will prevent victims from obtaining justice from atrocities committed during armed hostilities. And you will see there has been a judgment of the International Court of Justice. And recently in July, the second judgment of the Italian Constitutional Court that seems to have put an end to this, fortunately. Just to say how important the issue of immunity is. The principle has developed as a principle of customary international law. It is based on the principle par imparem non habit imperium, which means one state cannot judge on the other one and vice versa. It's a principle based on the equal sovereignty of state. As a principle of customary law, the principle of state immunity is determined by state practice and by the opinion of a number of instances. And this practice can be found in international treaties, in decisions of national international courts, in national legislation, in opinions of national legal advisor, diplomatic correspondence, practice of international organization. All this comes together to form the customary law. One very important piece in this area is the UN Convention on the Jurisdictional Immunities of State and their Properties. Now, this convention has not entered into force because it has been ratified only by 22 states. However, it is recognized as an authoritative expression of customary international law. Looking at central bank, how does immunity then comes to central bank? It is a relevant point and has come to the fore recently as a part of a broader trend recently towards greater interference on the central bank assets abroad. And this interference has increased both in scale and in scope, ranging from temporary restrictions to permanent expropriations. In particular, we all have in mind what happened on 28 February 2022, four days after the Russian forces invaded Ukraine, when the Western states holding assets of the Russian central banks in a coordinated action, decided to ban all transactions with the Russian central banks by their citizens and on their territory. This development, of course, opens a new chapter in the debate on sanctions against central banks for three reasons. The first is that the amount of central bank reserves affected are significant, especially when compared to the assets of listed private individuals. The second, and more importantly, my view is that until now, sanctions have been relevant for smaller central banks with a relatively minor role in the international monetary system. Now, freezing of the Russian central bank reserves has been described as crossing a rubicon, an economic and political rubicon. With the words of Adam Tooze, if central bank reserves of one G10 member entrusted to the accounts of another G10 member, central bank are not sacrosanct, nothing in the financial world is anymore. So it is a qualitative change in the discussion. And the third reason is that there are now proposals to use the central bank reserves to pay reparations to Ukraine. And these proposals range from the outright confiscation to using proceeds from these assets. Now, the difference is that unlike sanctions, which are temporary measures and have the objective of persuading the infringing state to comply again with international law, these proposals are actually aimed at reparation, and they are not temporary, most of them. So let me make a step back as well to see why, again, we should discuss this today. We need to approach the question of interference with central bank assets as a part of a much broader question. So how can we, the international community, or perhaps looking better the west part of the international community, how can we address a threat to international peace and security, and at the same time, first, maintain the respect for the international rule of law, so not become ourselves the monster that we are fighting. And second point is how can we do that by nevertheless avoid increasing the geopolitical fragmentation of the world economy as this could not only reverse the economic benefits of globalization, but more importantly could trigger wider confrontations. We need to show that we have learned our lessons from the past and the dangers of economic entrenchment and confrontation are not small. So both these issues are very complex and they contain multiple legal, political and economic dimensions. Now, as lawyers, we face a particular challenge which is linked to the interpretation, because the interpretation of the existing rules often contradict each other. There are scarce judicial pronouncement, very scarce judicial pronouncement, and states, of course, argue normally on the basis of political expediency more than on the basis of the law. There is little explicit jurisprudence and doctrine on sanctions and immunity rules in particular, and some people even speak about a blind spot. So let me indicate three questions without answering them that are open in this respect. The first is the question of the scope of the immunity. Are central bank assets protected by state immunity? The question more specifically is whether there is an irrefutable presumption that everything that a central bank holds is covered by the immunity, or whether, in fact, it depends on the usage. And here we have different state practices. Let me just briefly mention the Court of England and Wales and the Netherlands, based on the convention I was mentioning before, claim that or consider that all assets handed by central banks are categorically covered by the immunity. While recently judicial pronouncement in Sweden, and this follows a little bit the German and US jurisprudence, consider that you need really to look for what this is used. So only if it for sovereign purposes, for its own accounts or central banking tasks only. So it's more limited the scope. The second question that is open is whether the immunity is from judicial proceeding or also from execution. And there again, there are two main schools of thoughts and they were very well represented in the old time Interaction Court of Justice case, Timor Lester. Where one view is that the immunity only covers immunity from jurisdiction, so from the pronouncement of a judge, but an executive order of the executive would be not covered by immunity. That was the view of Australia. While the view of Timor was that in fact if you provide immunity, the immunity needs to extend also to the executive actions because otherwise this would be rather incongruous and they would nullify the effect of the immunity. And also because the school of thought argues there is sometimes a difficulty in distinguishing judicial from executive because in some cases the executive decision needs to be confirmed by a judge. So that's a second question. Then we have the issue of can this be justified as a countermeasure? Can a sanction be a countermeasure? Now what is a countermeasure? Countermeasure is an act of a state against another state that normally would be illegal, but it is not illegal because it is actually taken in order to force the other state to comply with international law. And here the first question that arises is can one adopt a countermeasure not for protecting itself, the state itself, but to protect another state or to protect the rule of law as such. Link to countermeasure that is also the issue of reversibility. Countermeasures should be reversible. They are there to put pressure in order to comply with international law. So the question is whether when we look at the concrete case we have in front of us, the Russian measures have the characteristic of countermeasure. And I don't dwell on that because we have enough speakers who will talk about that. There is also the question whether immunities could be waived. And here I come back to what I mentioned at the beginning, the Saga, Italy, Germany, because the question is of course in many areas of law when you have fundamental principles, you do balance those principles. You do have some exception. And here the International Court of Justice has taken a stance that is very, very strict and basically says it is impossible to derogate from state immunity, even when there is a violation of a very, very important principle of international law, which would be armed aggression is of course the most serious one. So I don't want to dwell on all these questions. I just thrown them on the table. We have enough bright people who will help us reflecting on this. But I would like again to remind that dealing with these issues is absolutely crucial now to preserve the international order on a rule-based system. I think for us lawyers it is absolutely important not to forget this, not to be pushed by the emotion of the movement which of course is very important and not to move into an anarchic environment in which the rules that we have conquered through very long time and practice will be then lost and disregarded. So we have here a fantastic panel. I'm so happy to have this privilege to chair them. Let me briefly introduce them and then we will move to a discussion on these issues. So first of all, Professor Ingrid Brunck holds the Helen Strong-Carrie Chair in International Law at Vanderbilt Law School. She is an expert of international law, transnational litigation, foreign relations law. And her influential scholarship on foreign sovereign immunity has appeared in leading journals. She has advised governments, private parties on many immunity-related topics, especially central bank communities. So we have here the expert. Among other things which I cannot list because the list is too long. She is currently serve as co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law that you all know and as a member of the American Law Institute. Then to my right I have Mr. Ostrander who is the general counsel of the Fed New York and the head of the legal group there. He has a hell of a job because he oversees the day-to-day operation of the group. So you can imagine, ranging from legal, compliance, bank application, group operations, strategy and even record management. He is also a member of the Bank Executive Committee and serves as the deputy general counsel of the Federal Market Open Committee. Before joining the Fed, Mr. Ostrander was managing director in legal and compliance at BlackRock where he oversaw the legal coverage of trading activity and technology products. And before that, and I'm going back quite a while now, managing director of Morgan Stanley responsible for global legal coverage of the firm's fixed income division. And to my left I have Dr. Irina Bogdanova. She is an international law scholar from Ukraine. She earned her PhD degree from the Faculty of Law of Bern and prior to this she has studied in Ukraine, in Switzerland, in Canada and in the Netherlands. So a real international lawyer. Currently she holds a position as a postdoctoral researcher based at the World Trade Institute at the University of Bern and her research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Now, recently her focus of her research has been on various aspects of economic statecraft but her recent book, which is the most interesting I think, explores the legality of unilateral economic sanctions. So those imposed by individual states without authorization of the UN. So let me now turn to them and see how they can help us, you know, studying and this setting all these questions. And thank you for bearing with me for the a little bit long introduction, but I think it was so. So I will start with you. Maybe you could give us an overview of the bank sanctions and the legal issues that are related to them and that they generate. There is a little bit of practice recently, no? Yes, happy to do so. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here. It's a real honor. So sanctions imposed on central bank assets are, as you have already said, not new, but obviously with the sanctions imposed on Russian central bank assets. The topic has become heated and the number of assets currently sanctioned are growing in scale and complexity. But it is important to remember that particularly the United States, but not only the United States has in the past imposed sanctions on Afghan, Venezuelan, Iranian, Russian, Cuban, North Korean and other central bank assets. And it's also important to think of this debate not only in the broader context of immunity, but in the context of the broader global debate about sanctions generally. Sanctions imposed on, especially on foreign states and state institutions rather than individuals are quite controversial globally. Detractors, including many countries in the global south, argue that sanctions do not achieve their stated goals. They serve as tools of coercion, wielded by powerful countries, and they harm vulnerable populations and individuals who have engaged in no wrongdoing. Proponents of sanctions, by contrast, argue that they're a helpful tool for deterring negative conduct such as terrorism, human rights violations, wrongful weapons programs, and of course, as we know today, unlawful military aggression. Sanctions imposed specifically on central bank assets are part of this broader debate, but as you know, they raise distinct issues, especially when it comes to domestic and international law governing foreign sovereign immunity. Now, as Kiara has already noted, in a general sense, central bank assets can take two forms. Most sanctions regimes freeze assets in one way or another. So, sanctions by the United States on the central bank of Iran have prohibited U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with the bank, and they have penalized foreign financial institutions that engage with the central bank of Iran. Sanctions of this kind can last for decades. They can serve as leverage in ongoing disputes, and they can have a profound impact on the populations involved, but they don't involve a formal change of ownership. In other words, they freeze the assets, but do not confiscate them. Now, some sanctions regimes make controversial designations about who actually represents a foreign state. So, think for a moment about Venezuela. Some states, including the U.K., designated Juan Guaido as the representative of the Venezuelan government for the purposes of control over Venezuelan central bank assets located in the U.K. But formally, Venezuela remains the owner of those assets, and the disposition by the United States of some Afghan central bank assets present a similar issue. As I hope we will get a chance to talk about later. But notice that these controversial decisions, which I think under public international law you would characterize as decisions about recognition, don't technically confiscate the assets. Now, some sanctions do confiscate, turn assets over to new owners, although this is far less common than asset freezes. Now, in this space, we see an interesting interaction of domestic law and international law in the United States and I think in other countries as well. Sanctions regimes in place, currently in place, don't authorize confiscations, so specific legislation is generally necessary to achieve that purpose. So, the United States, for example, has enacted very specific legislation that allowed assets of Iran's central bank to be turned over in litigation. The U.S. is, as many people know, also considering legislation that would confiscate Russian central bank assets located in the United States. Now, specific legislation is necessary, and depending on the country or in the EU, that legislation might have to take particular form to satisfy domestic constitutional constraints. Depravations of property are regulated constitutionally, and so there's an open question in many places whether you can use purely executive power to confiscate assets in a way that is consistent with the domestic constitution. Now, that intersects with the immunity question because there's this issue of whether executive actions are covered by immunity or not. So you might avoid immunity by using executive action, but that might be unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful. Notice there are also potential constraints imposed by bilateral investment treaties or the bilateral investment treaty between the U.S. and Russia is not enforced, but there may be customary international legal obligations that limit confiscations or expropriations. But immunity gets the lion's share of the attention here, and it's the primary, I think, legal limitation on confiscating central bank assets. So immunity limits, and I think this is important, and I have a position in the debate that Kiara, one of the debates that Kiara mentioned about whether immunity applies to executive and judicial action or just to judicial action. I think it's pretty clear from state practice that immunity limits judicial but not executive power, and it limits judicial power over foreign states and their assets. These are two different kinds of immunity, immunity from jurisdiction to adjudicate. That is, you simply cannot sue the Russian central bank in courts in the United States. That's immunity from jurisdiction to adjudicate. There is a distinct immunity, which is immunity from measures of constraint or execution, meaning that you cannot use any form of judicial process to attach or seize central bank assets located in the foreign state. Those are two, as I said, distinct kinds of immunity, but both of them are immunity from some form of judicial process. And I won't move further into this space, but I'm extremely happy to defend that view. The special central bank immunity, there's a special immunity for central bank assets, and that is related to that second kind of immunity, which is immunity from execution. And central, there are exceptions to immunity from central bank, immunity from jurisdiction, excuse me, there are, let me start that sentence just completely over. There are exceptions to immunity from execution. Most of those exceptions do not apply to central bank assets. This is the special and heightened form of immunity that central bank assets enjoy. Kyara is correct that the scope of this immunity on the margins is contested. Does it apply to all central bank assets or just central bank assets used for central bank purposes? There has been no dispute, however, that at its core it applies to foreign currency reserves deposited in the foreign state. So yes, there is a dispute, but it does not go that far. There is zero contrary state practice. All right, and we're going to have mostly a discussion, so I will wrap up here. Most central bank sanctions involve asset freezes, and these are conducted through executive, not judicial power, and they therefore don't implicate immunity at all. This point is reflected in the UN Convention, to which you've already made reference. It is also reflected in state practice. It is disputed by some scholars, but it's important for understanding the measures in question about turning Russian central bank assets over. All right, finally, I've noted that the U.S. has in the past taken measures to confiscate Iranian central bank assets through the judicial system. I think that cannot be justified based on countermeasures and probably puts the United States in violation of important norms of customary international law. The immunity to which foreign central bank assets are entitled, especially foreign currency reserves, is something about which states around the world agree. China passed a new state immunity law just days ago. It includes the same special protections for foreign central bank assets that will likely apply in Hong Kong. None of that is new. That has been China's practice and China's policy, but the new statute highlights that this is in a world of growing economic divisions. This is one place where there is a great deal of uniformity, a little bit of dissenting U.S. practice notwithstanding. So I will conclude there. Thank you. Wow, that's a very good start for our exploration. I would like to move to Yorick. Could you maybe give us your perspective about the central bank immunity as it was established in the U.S.? Because, of course, this is something you deal with it day by day, no? Happy to do so, and I first want to thank you, Dr. Zilioli, for the invitation to be on the panel today. It's an honor to be here. I also need to mention that my remarks today are my own. Do not reflect the position of the New York Fed or the Federal Reserve System generally. So foreign sovereign immunity in the United States is governed by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in 1976, or FSIA. That's not to say that sovereign immunity didn't exist in the U.S. prior to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Before that, we had a long history of court cases that established sovereign immunity. Those court cases started with a concept of absolute immunity, and that was carved back over time for a number of things. For example, a commercial activity of a sovereign became exempt from sovereign immunity. So the court cases established a number of exceptions, and the FSIA was really enacted in part to bring certainty to those both exceptions and to the grant of sovereign immunity. The legislative history and text of the FSIA make it clear that Congress was concerned that if central bank property were left vulnerable to attachment, deposits of central bank reserves in the U.S. would be discouraged, and by implication the stability of the international financial system could be potentially undermined. Also, by permitting execution against central bank reserves without explicit waiver, that could result in potential foreign relation issues for the United States government. So as has been mentioned, the FSIA provides two types of immunity. Immunity from jurisdiction of U.S. courts and immunity from execution or the ability to attach assets to satisfy a judgment. Specifically, section 1609 and 1611 of the FSIA established immunity protections for the attachment of property of foreign states held in the U.S. That immunity, as has been mentioned, is not absolute. There is an exception, section 1610 of the FSIA, that provides examples of situations where attachment would be allowed. And as I mentioned earlier, an important exception is for assets of a foreign state used for commercial activity in the United States, and that doesn't seem unreasonable. However, this exception could be read to capture core central banking functions, reserve management, which we would not want to capture in that exception. So the FSIA addressed that issue by including a specific provision that is only applicable to central banks and monetary authorities. That's section 1611. That provides immunity from attachment or execution for all property of a foreign central bank or monetary authority that is held for its own account. And as has been mentioned, unlike other general immunity provisions, there is no exception here. This is absolute, so no commercial activity exception and any waiver must be absolutely expressed that cannot be implied. There is a little uncertainty under the use of some of these terms. The held for its own account, the requirement that the central bank or monetary authority assets be held for its own account, was not defined. We do have some court cases in the U.S. that have interpreted that phrase, including a 2011 court case regarding Argentine central bank assets that were held at the New York Fed. The appeals court found that where assets are held in the name of a central bank monetary authority, the assets are presumed to be immune from attachment. That presumption can be rebutted by demonstrating that the particular assets are not being used for central bank functions, but that is a very high bar and very difficult to overcome. That's a very common sense approach, but it is common that the courts do respect the name on an account, which carries quite a bit of meaning. The New York Fed filed an amicus brief in that case, and we do file amicus briefs in these sorts of cases from time to time. As one of the world's largest custodians of official reserves, we have an interest in making sure these rules are clear and unambiguous. The position that we advocated for in the Argentine case is the position the court adopted, so we're happy about that. More recently, U.S. Congress has taken steps to carve back sovereign immunity, both jurisdictional immunity and attachment immunity, in certain situations and primarily related to terrorism and terrorist acts. For example, in 2002, Congress passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, or TRIA, which amended the FSIA to permit attachment of blocked assets of a terrorist party to satisfy an award of compensatory damages. So what does a plaintiff have to show under TRIA to successfully attach assets? The judgment has to be against a terrorist party, and TRIA defined a terrorist party as a terrorist organization, or a foreign state that has been designated by the U.S. government as a state sponsor of terrorism. So you have to have a terrorist party. The judgment has to relate to an act of terrorism or an act that is otherwise excluded from jurisdictional immunity under the FSIA because of the type of act that it was. The assets have to be blocked, so they have to be subject to sanctions. And as Ingrid has described a bit, blocked assets are any assets seized or frozen by the United States under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEPA. That is the basis for most sanctions that are imposed in the United States. So the assets have to be blocked assets. The assets must be assets of the terrorist party. Its agencies are instrumentalities, and that will be very interesting as we talk a little bit later. And the attachment can only be to the extent of compensatory damages. We don't allow attachment for punitive damages. So I think we'll walk through this exemption exception to immunity a bit later, but I guess I'll stop there to let you continue. Thank you so much because you've been extremely clear in a very complex area. So thank you for illuminating us, enlightening us. I turn to you, Irina. Maybe you can help us to see or give your views about whether there is a conflict between sanctions impacting central banks and immunities. I mean, this has been coming up from the previous interventions, but please. Thank you. Thank you for raising this very important question, and thank you for having me here today. So basically, when we are talking about economic sanctions and immunity entitlements, how do they relate the answers to these questions lies in how poor to interpret central bank immunity. And in fact, there is almost the universal acceptance that central bank immunity exists when it comes to central bank assets and that at least at minimum it protects these assets from measures of execution. So any property of central bank as well as property of other monetary authorities protected if there is a court decision against certain state, it should be protected. But when it comes to unilateral sanctions, in particular sanctions, unilateral sanctions which are not authorized by the United Nations Security Council. The question here is that these measures are usually taken based on domestic laws of the countries that implement these measures, and this is to an extent like executive decisions. So the question is how broad to interpret immunity entitlements. And in this respect, the literature at least and the legal opinion, there are three different diverging opinions on this matter. And in particular, it becomes even more pertinent in the context of the discussion of the confiscation of the Russian central bank assets. So first view is that central bank immunities should be interpreted very broad. This view is based on the idea that immunity entitlements as such come from the principle of sovereign equality of states. And that's why state property should be entitled to very broad protection of any measures of constrain irrespective of these measures taken. As a part of the court precedence or outside of the court precedence, thus including also measures of constraints such as unilateral economic sanctions. Second strand of literature, which is also in grid, is a prominent representative of this strand of literature. It talks about that immunity entitlements are more like a concept which applies in the context of judicial precedence. And here quite often, supporters of this view cite ICJ decision in the immunities case which was initiated by Germany against Italy about this kind of very procedural nature of immunity entitlements. And that's based following this logic, we come to a conclusion that not all the sanctions, even those which have certain, imply certain measures of constrain against central bank assets are covered by immunity entitlements. And the third strand of literature which emerged more in the context of discussion of confiscation of Russian assets is the discussion that any measure of confiscation in one or another way will implicate judicial oversight. And in such cases, according to kind of domestic legal systems, there should be an oversight and the courts will be faced, unavoidably faced with the need to decide how to imply immunity guarantees in this context. And now turning back to the current discussion which implicates Russian central bank assets and also what has been happening globally. So in the context of this discussion, it's important to say that indeed in the early days of the invasion, approximately half of the Russian central bank assets was immobilized as a response to the invasion and as one of these coordinated G7 efforts because in the context of the invasion what we have seen unprecedented G7 cooperation in terms of imposing sanctions between different countries. And as the war progress, we have seen more and more discussion about the possibility of confiscating or using these assets to generate some profit. And in this respect, it's interesting to reflect also on the development currently happening in different jurisdictions. So for example, Canada was the first state which amended its domestic law to allow confiscation of state-owned and private-owned assets irrespective of the fact whether these assets obtain in legal or illegal way. These amendments were adopted in June last year. And in December last year, Canada started first case. So they filed before the court first society case, but it implicates only private assets. So they started the case against private assets of a Russian sanctioned Russian oligarch. And in June this year, Canada also sized Russian registered cargo airplane, arguing that it belongs to one of the sanctioned entities. Looking at what has been done in the United Kingdom, for example, this year before hosting Ukraine Recovery Conference, the United Kingdom announced amendment of its domestic sanctions regulations in particular stating that assets of Russia will stay frozen in the United Kingdom as long as the reparations are paid to Ukraine. In other ways, they amended their domestic sanctions regulation to say that objective of these measures are not only to force Russia to stop its kind of illegal aggression against Ukraine, but also that Russia now has a duty to bear reparations. And these assets will stay frozen in the country as long as these reparations has not been paid. Also, this new regulation allows private individuals to donate their frozen assets to recovery of Ukraine if they wish to do so. So at the EU level, we have seen two parallel developments happening. First, it's this idea that violation of European Union sanctions, here they are called restrictive measures, should be criminalized. So it should be considered as an offence and also based on that if some of these assets are implicated in sanctions or convention practices, they should be allowed a confiscation of these assets. In other words, in some cases, if adopted, this directive would allow that some of the frozen assets might potentially be confiscated if there is enough evidence to prove that they have been implicated in some sort of sanctioned circumvention practices. As of now, this directive is still under consideration, but there is a significant probability that until the end of this year we will have already some sort of solution to this issue. And second, it's this discussion at the EU level of how to use frozen or immobilized Russian Central Bank assets to generate proceeds which can then go to Ukraine as a part of compensation on behalf of Russia. So to this discussion we will return a bit later. And also I would like to draw attention to the statement of the G7 that was issued in April this year, which explicitly says that countries have agreed that before there is any resolution to the conflict, Central Bank assets will stay immobilized in their respective jurisdictions, but at the same time it was underlined that any resolution to the ongoing conflict should also resolve the situation of reparations. But at the same time, if you read this statement you can come to a conclusion that there is no any decision beyond the agreement that this asset should stay immobilized and then there should be some sort of concerted effort. So as we see, states generally look at different options, but what we can see also from the state practice is that states are in general very much hesitant to confiscate Central Bank assets. And there are a number of reasons for this first. There is this questionable legality of this move under international law in particular state immunity, but at the same time there is a concern more like a policy concern of certain very dangerous precedent for the future. Thank you. Thank you, Irina, also for bringing in the element of confiscation, which of course is present in our minds. I would like to move to another aspect of Sanchez and I turn back to you, Rick, again. So several of us have read in the press that the New York Fed transferred recently three and a half billion from the Bank of Afghanistan to the BIS. Maybe you can tell us a little bit what happened and the reasons behind it and the instruments through which that was done. That's a great question and I think there's a great deal of confusion around exactly what happened from a legal perspective in that situation. There was a New York Times article last week that reported President Biden had ordered 3.5 billion of DAB assets to be transferred to a trust and that is not technically what happened. So let me tell you technically what happened. But I think it's first, let's walk through some events and this is a great case study in both sanctions and Tria and things like that. So in August 2021, we're just past a two year anniversary, the Taliban took over in Afghanistan. As a result, the New York Fed suspended withdrawals from the Afghanistan banks account at the New York Fed. That's our standard procedure for situations in which we are unsure who has the authority to act for an account. Unfortunately, I've done that from time to time. So we froze withdrawals from the account. No sanctions or other US government actions were taken at the time with respect to the DAB assets. Shortly thereafter in September and October, some plaintiffs who had judgments against the Taliban, existing judgments against the Taliban for the 9-11 activities in the US, filed to attach DAB assets at the New York Fed under the Terrorist Risk Insurance Act. They served rites of execution on the New York Fed and filed motions seeking turnover of those DAB assets to those plaintiffs. The New York Fed complied with the rites of execution and kept the account basically locked down during this time. Fast forward to February 11th, 2022, a busy day for the US government. A number of things happened. We had an executive order from President Biden that came out. Biden cited the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and the potential for economic collapse as an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. He therefore ordered that all DAB property in the US be blocked from transfer unless otherwise permitted by regulation, order, directive, or license. So the assets at that point in time became blocked, sanctioned assets. Also on February 11th, OFAC issued a license to the New York Fed directing the New York Fed to transfer 3.5 billion to a new account at the New York Fed for the Afghanistan Bank. So we now had two accounts of the Fed, one their existing account and the secondly a new account, but still all accounts for the Afghanistan Bank. The license also required that upon receipt of instruction from individuals who have been certified by the Secretary of State pursuant to Section 25B of the Federal Reserve Act as having authority to receive control or dispose of property from the account of the Afghanistan Bank, so called 25B certified individuals. So upon instruction from a 25B certified individual, the New York Fed was instructed to transfer up to 3.5 billion to a new account set up through an international financing mechanism established for the benefit of the Afghan people. So there's a lot in there, but let's go back for a second to what is a 25B certified individual. So 25B refers to a section of the Federal Reserve Act that contemplates having the U.S. Secretary of State certify that an individual has the authority to receive control or dispose of assets of the state or central bank held at the Reserve Bank. It allows the Reserve Bank to look to the Secretary of State for guidance around who the U.S. government recognizes as having the authority to act for the state and its instrumentalities. Now that is a judgment that can be very difficult for an individual Reserve Bank to make on its own. It's a judgment that clearly has foreign policy ramifications, so from the Federal Reserve perspective, best left to the government. So this is the mechanism that allowed, in other situations as well, the government to tell the New York Fed this person has authority to act for the central bank. On September 14, 2022, a number of press releases came out that announced the creation of the Afghan Fund. The Afghan Fund is a Swiss foundation. It has a board of directors comprised of four individuals. The Afghan Fund opened an account at the BIS. The BIS is not involved with the governance of the Afghan Fund. It is only the bank for the Afghan Fund's account. Subsequent to the establishment of the Afghan Fund, the FRB Federal Reserve Bank of New York transferred $3.5 billion from the new account that was set up to the BIS account. And we did that upon receipt of instructions from individuals who had been certified under 25B as having the authority to act for the central bank. So why wasn't this a confiscation of the DAB assets? Biden just didn't order it. Well, the short answer is that the Fed was acting at the direction of individuals who had been certified by the U.S. State Department as authorized to act for the central bank of Afghanistan. The OFAC license was very narrowly tailored to permit only that activity with respect to DAB assets. So that was the only thing that those individuals could have instructed us to do that we would have been permitted to do. But the OFAC license didn't cause it to happen. The OFAC license permitted it to happen upon instruction of the certified individuals. So let me turn back a bit now to the efforts of the plaintiffs that had judgments against the Taliban looking to attach the DAB assets. This is still a matter of active litigation in the U.S. There was a ruling by the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York recently. It is under appeal. But I think it's illustrative to walk through what the District Court found about the application of the Terrorist Risk Insurance Act. So remember the elements. The judgment had to be against a terrorist party. Well, in this case, the judgment was against the Taliban and Taliban is in the U.S. considered a terrorist party, so that element was met. The judgment must arise from a terrorist act. That element was also met in this case. The third element was that assets must, that being attached must be blocked assets. Now it's interesting to note at the time that the writ of execution was served on the Fed, the assets were not blocked. The assets were not blocked until February of 2022. At that time they became blocked and the element would have been met, but initially this element was not met. It's also important to note that the way the U.S. courts have interpreted blocked assets, sanctioned assets, is that it excludes assets that are subject to a license. So the 3.5 billion assets that were permitted to go to the Afghan fund were subject to a license and therefore not blocked pursuant to U.S. law. There was actually a separate ruling made and a filing, a statement of interest filed by the Department of Justice also on the February 11th date, asserting that those assets should be cleared as not blocked, released from the writ of execution so that they could be sent, if instructed, to the Afghan fund. But the 3.5 billion of assets that remain at the New York Fed are still blocked and this element would be met for those assets. The next element was the assets being attached must be the assets of a terrorist party, its agencies or instrumentalities. And this is where the court case, where the district court found that the plaintiff case failed. The U.S. government has not, had not and still has not recognized the Taliban as the government Afghanistan. The court noted that Daab is the Afghan central bank, not the Taliban central bank. So this is somewhat subtle and can be confusing, but in some sense we can think about the Taliban as a political party. If a plaintiff in the U.S. had a judgment against the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, they couldn't attach the assets of the U.S. government, regardless of who was in charge, who was the president or who was in charge of Congress at that time. The other analogy that's been used sometimes is sort of a corporation and its shareholders. So that if you think of the Afghan central bank as a corporation and the shareholders as the Taliban, the assets of a corporation are not the assets of the shareholder. That's the theory we used here. So the court said that they do not view the assets held at the New York Fed as assets of the Taliban and therefore ruled against the plaintiff's trying to attach those assets. But I know that that is still under appeal. Another very complex case enlightened for us or clarified for us. Thank you very much. Would you like to add something perhaps on the Afghan situation in Grid? Yeah, I agree with Rick that it's fascinating and I just want to highlight a couple of interesting public international law issues involved here. So the half of the Afghan central bank assets that have been transferred to the Afghan fund don't present an issue of immunity. There's been no judicial, there's been no court finding, there's been no judicial action with respect to those assets. It's been purely executive branch. And there's no requirement under public international law that the United States recognizes the Taliban, although the Taliban is in de facto power in Afghanistan, right? Each country can make its own decision about who it wants to recognize as the government of another country. But the interesting issue raised by this is what legal obligations does the United States have to a country whose government it does not recognize? Those obligations might include giving the de facto but unrecognized government control over the central bank assets located in the forum state. I'm not sure that's correct. There's some practice the other way, including Venezuela. But what's very unusual in the Afghan case is the United States has taken the category in public international law of recognition. And instead of recognizing a de facto government of Afghanistan, we've made a recognition just of some gentlemen in Switzerland. And we have turned central bank assets over to them called the Afghan Fund. We haven't recognized them as the government of Afghanistan. We're not recognizing them as the de facto or the government in exile. And we haven't done anything except recognize them for this very targeted purpose of disposing of central bank assets. Now, I'm very sympathetic with the US government. The objective here is to try to use those central bank assets to aid the Afghan people without putting them in the hands of the Taliban. So I'm trying to be sympathetic to the objective. But I think this maneuver raises some very interesting questions of the recognition power and how it relates to assets located in the forum state. The other central bank assets are mired in this complex litigation, which Rick has hopefully explained. I just want to, I mean, if those plaintiffs are successful, this will be a confiscation of Afghan central bank assets. It will take those assets and it will put them in the hands of American citizens who have been victims of terrorist attacks. Notice what's happening here. Afghan central bank assets are turned over to United States citizens for judgments against the Taliban. As Rick said, not judgments against Afghanistan. These are legal judgments about the organization called the Taliban. And it's a little bit rich on the one hand to say that we don't recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan. On the other hand, to take Afghan central bank assets and use them to pay the debts of the Taliban. This in some sense brings us full circle to some comments made yesterday by Alexander Thela. Let me just note the engine in the United States for these kinds of confiscations are political pressure. This is not the courts. This is not even really the executive branch. This is Congress over and over becoming more and more specific that Congress wants to authorize Iranian central bank assets to be turned over to victims of terrorism. This is what happens when you get too deeply mired in the political process. I'll end there. Thank you. Very nice compliment. And I open. So maybe let's come back to the Russian Ukraine situation, Irina. Maybe can you tell us what you consider about the idea of the that is on the table at the moment and how the idea of using the proceeds from the seized German Russian central bank assets. How can that relate to the central bank community and would require the development of a new exception for the rule of central bank immunity. Thank you. So while we are kind of operating in reality where there is hardly any chance of peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in near or mid term future, countries start wondering about how they can use those immobilized central bank assets at least partially compensate Ukraine. Because as of now, the last estimate of the damage that was released in March this year already counted that the cost of reconstruction will already exceed four hundred billion US dollars. And this was before the dam was destructed and before many other events happened. So at the level as I briefly mentioned, there is this initiative to look about criminalization of violation of EU sanctions, but which will mostly it cannot. It will apply to new violations, even if this directive is adopted, it will apply to new violations. And then most probably this will touch upon private assets. So when it comes to central bank assets, the idea that started gaining traction from last year, it was how can this assets be used in order to generate some proceeds which can be then transferred to Ukraine in the fulfillment of Russia's duty to pay reparations. So there is, and again, I want to say very clear here we are talking about idea because as of now there is no official documents, so we are just speculating about media reports and some of the leaked documents which are available online. So in November last year, there was already discussion like there was some proposals submitted by the European Commission on how this assets can be used. And from the available information, there is only press release, which is two pages where basically the idea is presented that there is short term kind of prone and then there is long term approach. So short term approach focuses on a temporary active management of these assets with the idea of generating proceeds which will go to Ukraine, but without touching the core of the central bank assets which have Russian central bank assets which have been immobilized. And the long term perspective is that once the result resolution to the conflict when Russia pays reparations, then this assets will be, sanctions will be lifted, this assets will be again mobilized and then transferred to Russia. So based on this ad hoc working group on frozen assets which has been established, presented and non paper, it's called non paper in March this year. Again, this non paper is available online. Some of the journalists leaked this non paper. So basically after this non paper, one comes to conclusion that the idea behind this whole proposal is to take liquid assets of the Russian central bank to put them in what is called temporary active management to generate some proceeds which are estimated approximately 2.6% annual rate. Then this proceeds will go to Ukraine until Russia pays the full amount of reparation to Ukraine so there is no time, any time limit for this. And at the same time, two legal questions were discussed in this non paper. One of these is state immunity entitlements and how do they relate to this idea. And second, it's EU domestic legal framework how to implement this idea of active management inside of how to implant this idea inside of the existing legal order. So talking about the non paper approach on state immunity, basically there is more or less two paragraphs, but one of the substance how they see state immunity playing a role in this discussion. And in fact they talk that state immunity, the way they are reflected in the UN Convention are very narrow concept. And as such, and here I would like to quote, the principle of state immunity does not prohibit proportionate administrative restrictive measures which are temporary reversible and not confiscatory in nature and which pursue the legitimate objectives of the union. So in fact, the whole emphasis of this non paper is that this is temporary measure, it's reversible and at the end of the day we will return the main kind of the amount of the assets that was immobilized on the 28th of February 2022. So also turning another interesting question that was raised in this non paper was that in fact there is no any relevant practice in this respect. So what was discussed is that the practice of the European Union in using restrictive measures against assets of private individuals or companies so called sanctioned companies or individuals that in fact this non paper talks that when there are restrictive measures imposed by the European Union against some entities or individuals, it usually does not imply and these measures imply reason of the assets at the end of the day does not imply that there will be some proceeds generated by these assets. So at the end of the day when these sanctions are lifted, there is no proceeds. So and they more or less kind of referring to this practice of European Union in implementing sanctions to try to justify the same actions when it comes to European, when it comes to Russian Central Bank assets. And as of now this is the most current state of debate. There have been also some reports that as of now there is a discussion of whether even to go step first and for example to introduce a tax on this proceeds. So just confiscate the proceeds which can be get from active management of these assets but to impose some sort of tax levy and then transfer this money to Ukraine. And talking about turning to the second question which relates to the possible exception to state immunity entitlements. In fact there have been some discussions what are the legal ways of establishing such an exception because as of now except of the only exception is state consent when the state who owns this asset consents that these assets can be used for these purposes. And that's why sometimes in the literature there is a big criticism from human rights activists or from other interested groups that state immunity guarantee too much kind of state immunity guarantees are too broad. They do not take into account other factual circumstances which might happen. But looking at kind of two most plausible ideas we have been discussed is the idea of introducing such an exception, a very narrow exception with respect to this particular situation which implicates war initiated by Russia against Ukraine based on the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly with the majority support. But then again this is more like a theoretical discussion in the literature. In practice it might be hard to harness such a broad support because in November last year there have been already United Nations General Assembly resolutions which acknowledged that Russia has an obligation to pay reparations to Ukraine. And it should be noted that that resolution was adopted with a slight majority so 94 members of the United Nations voted in favor with 73 members abstaining in the vote. And then again the discussion was very much politicized because many states complained that they didn't get the same amount of justice after there was some conflicts in which the states were implicated. So again looking how hard it was again ready to gain support for this merely resolution which just states the fact that Russia has a duty before Ukraine to pay for the destruction it caused. It's probably highly unlikely that there will be a possibility to gather enough support for the resolution which will say that let's waive state immunity from central bank assets. The other idea which has also got some attention in different circles also in academics and practitioners is this idea of multilateral agreement signed between the countries that have immobilized Russia and central bank assets in which they will kind of agree to in this particular circumstances to lift state immunity and in such a way kind of find a way to confiscate these assets and then to repurpose them for Ukraine's reconstruction. Thank you. Okay. So two interesting proposal one for an exception that should be supported by the international community. So when there is a resolution and only in very serious cases and probably only in case of armed aggression. Now the question is how you differentiate this instrument from other reactions that international law allows for aggression. So question mark but it's a difficult issue indeed. And the second multilateral agreement between the ones on one side of the so the holders of these reserves against the owners that also could be quite quite a critical approach. But we welcome all creative ideas but they need to be reflected upon I guess. Thank you very much. I'm still here with a question that I would like to ask Ingrid because at the beginning of your first talk you mentioned because we were talking about confiscation and you mentioned that there is something sitting in Parliament in the United States talking about confiscation. Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, absolutely. I can actually read the relevant language of the statute to you because it's really short and it makes a lot of things very clear. It's it's buried here deep in the statute but it says the president may confiscate any Russian sovereign assets subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. There you go. I can say I could say a lot more things about the statute but that's it. There are other important language absolutely prohibits the possibility of any judicial review of any aspect of the statute. There's of course who follow this and who have been paying attention right by lifting removing judicial review. We've taken this out of the realm of immunities right there was no need to amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Usually when you confiscate assets foreign sovereign assets in the United States you also need to amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act because normally you need a court order to turn over assets. Even as a piece of property deposit well I'm you know too much anyway normally normally right you need a court order enabled it in order to go in and turn over the actual ownership of the property. This the statute doesn't require that in terms of the disposition of the confiscated assets that is supposed to happen through the Secretary of State who at the United States serves at the pleasure of the president. I could say more but I'll turn it over to I think I think that's the meat of it. No but maybe before turning over do you think this is consistent apart from U.S. constitutional law with international law. Yeah so as I've said it avoids it avoids immunity. I think it you know it may via the bilateral there is a bilateral investment treaty between Russia and the United States but it is not enforced. So there is no restrictions from a relevant bit. It probably violates customary international law that prohibits expropriation. Most of the literature on that is about private expropriations right the normal thing is a foreign company invests in your state and then you expropriate that there really aren't many examples of there are no examples of confiscations of central bank assets like this that I'm aware of through through executive action but I do think there are some international legal constraints that sound in that way. The bill is confusing because it for example has a has a little discussion of countermeasures. But then you only need to use countermeasures if you are excusing conduct that would otherwise be a violation of international law. So it sort of wanders into a little bit about countermeasures without actually explaining the predicate which is what international law it thinks would be violated through through the statute. And we haven't talked much about countermeasures but I'd be of course happy to do so in question and answer but I'll turn it over to further questions. Yeah and maybe Rick you might end up if this is approved having to deal with that. Which we would of course follow the law if that became the law and I can't comment on policy matters and whether that's a good idea or not to do this. I will note my personal view is that there is a tension between wanting to do something in the face of egregious facts and you know potentially creating a precedent that takes us down a very slippery slope. But I'm sure our policymakers are weighing the benefits and potential costs appropriately when thinking about the legislation. I understand this is a difficult a difficult area. But maybe maybe we'll not be passed after all. So who knows. Let's see. Good. I go back to you Irina. You mentioned the UK was very interesting to hear what has been done in Ukraine. I mean that is this you know blocking the proceeds until the compensation is justified as possible countermeasure in under international law or is it something new on the sword. So basically this discussion of state immunities implicates several areas of law like one is legality of you know natural sanctions second it's immunity and third big branch of law which is implicating. This discussion is state immunity rules of state immunity and possibility to justify different measures which are taken with respect to central bank assets as countermeasures. And this respect it's important to keep in mind several issues that characterize countermeasures as such first countermeasures they are illegal as such. But they allowed in certain circumstances as a response to a prior illegal conduct. So with respect to this UK initiative to keep Russian assets frozen they have been already a discussion that to an extent even if it violates immunity entitlements of central of Russian central bank this might might be potentially justified as a legitimate countermeasure. And in particular the discussion was that this should be justified as a potential as a permissible countermeasure because Russia has the duty to pay reparations. And that's why UK takes this measure as a countermeasure but but then when we are talking about countermeasures and countermeasures taken by not directly injured states we are a bit in a murky legal train because codification of state immunity has taken half a century. But at the end of the day when the draft articles on state responsibility were issued they didn't resolve the issue of so-called non directly injured states. So there is still kind of discussion whether non injured states can take countermeasures so-called third party countermeasures or countermeasures in general interest. So when we are talking about trying to justify any restrictions or any measures taken against Russian central bank assets we should keep in mind several obstacles which exist for non directly injured states to take such measures. First it's that they are not directly injured in the meaning of the draft articles so the possibility of taking countermeasures is already questionable. Second it's the nature of countermeasures is such as defined in draft articles countermeasures should be taken to induce compliance with international obligations so such countermeasures are not punitive in their nature. So and that's why the idea has emerged that let's not say that we take countermeasures against Russia in response to aggression because then it will be like more punitive response but let's discuss that Russia has to compensate. So they have a duty to pay reparations and we are taking these countermeasures in respect of this in trying to induce them to comply with the international obligation of paying reparation. And third issue it's the most controversial issue when it comes to this discussion of confiscation is the issue that countermeasures should be reversible in their nature. So they should be temporary and reversible and explicitly stated in draft articles that once international violation ceases the states which have introduced countermeasures also have a duty to leave those measures. That's why kind of to an extent there is a possibility to try to justify UK decision as more like a permissible countermeasures within the meaning of draft articles. But at the same time there are still obstacles because there is still discussion about this legality of third party countermeasures which which is not very clearly resolved as of now. Thank you very much. So I myself I'm exhausted my question I would like to open the floor once more if you have anything to add and then to the audience. We go to the audience right away. Wow. Okay. Try to be short in your questions because I would like to allow everybody and we have 15 minutes. Thank you very much. Two quick remarks. First remark big compliment to all panelists including you Chiara for that wonderful panel very clear very very impressive remark number two it seems to me that there is a distinct difference in the US approach and the European approach. You you described Irina I think by by walking the countermeasure line we recognize in principle immunity. And we look for tailored solutions to the atrocities that currently happen and how to to cope in a very imperfect way with that. I think the the argument which was made that today's zero straight practice for for putting executive action within the realm of of immunity law and is maybe to be to be considered under the angle that this is largely sorry. Ingrid that this is that this is very much of course given the importance of Wall Street and of of of New York as the hub of the world's financial system. US state practice and US state practice of course is as you as you very ably pointed out very much influenced by by the political realities in Washington. And so that that my second remark I would very much favor an approach that that you have in your last contribution Irina presented as one way discussed right now. Thank you very much. Maybe we take another couple of questions. Yeah. Thank you Daniel. European Central Bank. I promise very short and practical questions first to Mr. Ostranda about Tria and the link to possible designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism likely or not politically if it does happen with Russia because of its sponsoring of abductions assassination etc joins the ranks of North Korea, Syria, Cuba is designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the US government and then some other party like Ukrainian government obtains a judgment against Russia and tries to domesticate it in in the US. Would it be an avenue to attach Russian Central Bank assets for compensatory measures under this construction Tria related. And the second question a bit more broadly to Dr. Bogdanova. I you mentioned this multilateral treaty as one way of dealing with Russian assets. I feel it's the most politically realistic one because of dealing with a collective action problems against third states. However, I feel the states would need more than just a multilateral treaty. They would need some kind of international judgment to rely on to as far as possible is isolate themselves from from political risks here to indicate that this is really a special situation based on the judicial action by independent body. And in this context, my question to you, do you see it as helpful to link this topic to the tribunal on the crime of aggression? Is it realistic in your view? This type of comment would be highly welcome benefits. Thank you. Maybe if the speaker could say their name before speaking because I know you but not everybody please. So there are two in that row. And then, yes, take those two and then maybe the fifth and then we stop. Yeah. So my name is Julio Cortesi. I'm a postdoctoral research in the University of Crete. I want to thank all of you for the very inspiring intervention. I will be very quick. I have a just a question for Professor Wood about the definition of central bank because I think it's. You mentioned the issue of Iran. We all know that there was a case between Iran and United States and in the first instance, the preliminary judgment and the second judgment. To my impression, it's quite debated. There are four dissenting opinion, maybe more about the issue. If the international court of justice has changed the test to define an international central central bank under international law, there are different opinion on this. I have mine, of course, but that would be very interested in your. So thank you very much. And I had the. Good morning. My name is Sergio Cabo. I used to be former legal member of the civil legal services. And my question is a broad question and to all members of the panel, if they have the answer and the question is about the legal cases that the Russians started against. I would understand to the against the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or against other counterparties regarding sanctions and freezing of assets. Do you have any information that you could provide to the audience on this regard on legal actions that Russia started against all those decisions? Thank you. Okay, Carolina and then the last one. Then we stop first Carolina in just a second. Thank you very much. I would be very brief. I have many questions, but just wanted. No, your name. Sorry, a current liner and professor at the university by city. Wonderful debate. I'm very interesting in the topic of confiscation. But if I understood well arena, you said that the fact that we could confiscate the, like the interest produced by generated by an account. That would be a different kind of confiscation than just to confiscate to confiscate the assets. But if I remember well, the EU guidelines on the implementation of, of freezing assets and also other legislative recommendation of member states. It is not prohibited even though an account is frozen to receive to receive some credits on this account. So I mean, the interest itself is still the property of the person whose asset has been frozen. So how do you, I mean, in international law, it's a new debate. So how can we handle this? And I think that even if we say that we will confiscate not the asset itself, but just the interest produced by those assets. This is still, there's still a problem of, of course, property law, because also the some guidelines say specifically that the interest that those frozen assets may generate interest by themselves. It's not prohibited. Thank you very much. Ben McDonough, office of the Comptroller of the currency. Two quick questions for Richard. First, have you gotten any feedback from other central bank account holders to the extent that you can comment about these recent activities? And second, can you comment on any potential liability that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York faces? Thank you. Looking at the clock, I will give the opportunity to the other questions and then we close all together. So are there further questions in this part of the room? No, but then fine. Perfect. So maybe Ingrid, I look at you to start with some of the answers. Gosh, these are such great questions. It's such a privilege to be here and talk about these questions with with people who understand them so well. So on the question about state practice for executive branch, and my statement that there, there isn't really any state practice that suggests that immunity is a is a restriction on executive branch action. So just to just to take one step backwards, when I when I talk about state practice in that context, I'm talking about, as I've already mentioned, about the immunity statutes in place around the world. So that includes China's immunity statute, Japan's immunity statute, Australia's immunity statute that these these statutes apply only to judicial action. So when I'm when I'm talking about state practice, it's a it's a very global look. And when it comes to protests, right, who who has protested sanctions, I think this is your point, right? It's super hard when the United States imposes sanctions for some countries to push back against that. The thing, though, is we have these Iran, you know, Iran has sued Canada and the United States in the ICJ, but not because they think asset freezes violate foreign sovereign immunity. Venezuela has pressed its case of the international violations of international law by the United States, and the list is very long, and it does not include asset freezes as violations of foreign sovereign immunity. So again, in places where countries have incentives and opportunities to develop state practice along these lines, that it's just it's just not there. It's more at the moment, it's entirely an academic argument, there just really isn't any state practice that supports this. And I'll say one other the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, I've actually come out quite strongly opposing designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, because, as you say, doing so would open Russian central bank assets to execution of certain kinds of judgments. Those judgments are in favor of U.S. citizens, and so in fact it would make Russian central bank assets available potentially to litigants other than Ukrainians. And it might actually be entirely counterproductive when it comes to the effort to compensate Ukraine. I think that's the designating Russia a state sponsor of terrorism is an incredibly poor method to try to use Russian central bank assets to help Ukraine. And the ICJ, you know, it's interesting the definition, this goes back to how you started the panel, right, on the definition of state, of central banks, and the immunity law takes a very functional approach to what constitutes a central bank. It's are you performing classic monetary functions? Does it look, is it doing the stuff that central banks do, whatever you call it? And as you know, the, as you already said, the ICJ judgment didn't, didn't deal with immunity at all. So I think it's a little bit difficult to draw many conclusions. But now I'll be quiet. Yes, well, just pile on the triad point a little bit. I think if you technically, if it were to happen, notwithstanding Ingrid's points about whether it should or shouldn't and other consequences that might occur if you did. I think the other hurdle here is Ukraine would have to obtain a judgment in the United States against Russia. I don't know for what violation of U.S. law. And Russia also has jurisdictional immunity in the United States that would have to be overcome. And the exceptions to jurisdictional immunity so far would not extend, I think, to Ukraine. I can't think of one that would allow Ukraine to even sue. But interesting theoretical process. Under, and with respect to the liability that the New York Fed might face, with respect to, I mean, the two examples, Russia, again, to the point that we are just freezing assets subject to instruction of the U.S. government. With respect to Afghanistan, back to the 25 B point under the Federal Reserve Act, acting on the, allowing someone who has been certified as authorized under 25 B to instruct us. I think we are explicitly immune from liability for following those instructions. So hopefully there is no liability for New York Fed in either case. Thank you. So I will address two questions. First about multilateral treaty and Legitimacy indeed. When we are looking about countries that have immobilized assets, it's countries that also quite often impose different types of unilateral sanctions. And they have been already criticized at the countries which rely on sanctions outside of the United Nations framework. So it always raises this question of legitimacy and raises the question of economic coercion against developing countries and other countries. So that's why I turn to the question of tribunal on the crime of aggression and then enforcement of this decision. In fact, when it comes to Ukraine and what was Russia, there are many parallel developments in this respect. And Ukraine has been pushing for the creation of the special tribunal. But then again, it takes some time. There have been a number of states that have already agreed on the establishment of this tribunal, but this is a process. And also reflect on these, I think it's not a coincidence that in November last year there was the United Nations General Assembly resolution, which already recognized that Russia has a duty to pay reparation and based on this resolution. Then the action was taken at the Council of Europe where the register of damage was created. So in fact, right now there is a register of damage which is established in the Hague with the subsidiary office in Kiev, which will kind of verify all these claims. And I think the reason why this register was established also partly to have a verified record of how much Russia will own at the end of the day. So that it's not only Ukrainian estimates, but it's also verified by the broader community. So I think obviously the decision of the tribunal would be preferred outcome, but there are many factors which kind of doesn't make the solution that easy. And then turning back quickly to the question of partial confiscation and confiscation. In fact, if we are looking at this idea of partial confiscation or kind of using the proceeds, it's again, it's kind of, it's still debatable to what extent it overlaps with all this immunity entitlements, property rights and everything. So it's not that clear card that if you just use proceeds it becomes immediately legal. And that's why one of the reasons why in fact now this idea take much longer time because initially it was planned that this idea would be released by the end of summer. Already will be some official documents now it's stretched to autumn and it's particular because of many different considerations, which have been also expressed by different players and it's not that easy. But in the non paper, which I just find it interesting that in non paper where they discussed this idea in quite positive light, they reflected on this practice of EU sanctions. For example, when there is, when before the freezing of the assets there have been some kind of contractual obligations and yes, then you receive some sort of payment on your account if it's frozen. But if there was no such contractual obligations, there is no duty for example for a bank that have frozen your bank account to invest it to get you proceeds to so in way enrich you. So there is no such duty and they reflect on this practice of the EU sanctions in order to kind of together some support for this idea. Thank you. I would like to ask the audience to join me in a big round of applause for this fantastic panel. I myself learned a lot today and I would like also to thank the audience for your active participation is really the key for the good success of the panel. Thank you very much.