E v. King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue

In 2017 E., an electrician who had entered into a contractual relationship with The King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) and an architecture burau, filed a suit demanding that the payment of a retention bond requested by KAICIID be revoked.

The Vienna District Court issued the provisional measures, rejecting the KAICIID’s plea of absolute immunity from the national jurisdiction. In particular, the organization argued that Article 5 of the Headquarters Agreements entered by KAIICID and Austria provides that the KAICID shall enjoys immunity from every form of legal process. This judgment was annulled by the Higher Regional Court of Vienna on appeal. The Court held that neither the contract nor the guarantee of the retention bond included clauses can be considered as a waiver of immunity. As a result, the applicant filed an application to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court underlined that international organizations’ immunities have a treaty-basis. In particular, the respondent organization’s immunity from Austrian jurisdiction rests on the Headquarters Agreement. The Supreme Court also stressed that grating of immunity to international organizations it aims to protect international organizations from undue interferences in their activities. As a consequence, international organizations enjoy a wide immunity.

It stressed that a waiver of immunity, according to Austrian law, could only be expressed by an authorized organ of the organization and the intention to waive immunity must be expressed in unambiguous terms. Similarly, the KAICIID – Austria Headquarters Agreement provides that any waiver must be express. In the case at hand, no such an explicit wavier existed.

Finally, according to the Supreme Court, immunity from national jurisdiction established under Headquarters Agreements represents a proportionate and legitimate restriction of the right to a legal remedy enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, considering that, in the case at hand, disputes could be settled before an arbitral tribunal, as provided for under the relevant agreements.