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Suing Germany over the genocide in Namibia in U.S. courts: the pitfalls of serving a summons on the German Government

Artificial Intelligence
Jan 6, 2026
Author

Rana Moustafa Essawy

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On 1 July 2018, Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat based at the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Vienna, was arrested at a rest area on the A3 motorway in south-east Germany on a European arrest warrant issued by Belgian law enforcement authorities. The Belgian authorities sought the extradition of Assadi for his role in commissioning a Belgian-Iranian couple to carry out an explosive attack on an annual meeting of an Iranian opposition group in France on 30 June 2018. For that purpose, he was said to have handed the couple an explosive device with a total of 500 grams of the explosive TATP in Luxembourg City at the end of June 2018. On the day of the attack, Belgian security forces had arrested the couple en route to France and secured the device. On 3 July 2018, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs summoned the Iranian ambassador to Vienna and requested that Iran lift the immunity of Assadi within 48 hours. However, the Iranian Government did not accede to the request. On the contrary, on 4 July 2018, the Iranian Government summoned the French and Belgian ambassadors and Germany’s chargé d’affaires (in the absence of the German ambassador) to Tehran in protest at the arrest of the Iranian diplomat in Germany. In a press release the Iranian Foreign Ministry stated:

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The Modernised German Nationality Law and the Pitfalls of Allowing Unrestricted Multiple Nationality

By: Rana Moustafa Essawy
Dispute Resolution | Dec 28, 2025
For a long time, the avoidance of multiple nationality, that is, the simultaneous possession of two or more nationalities by the same person, was one of the principles of German nationality law. This changed on 26 June 2024, when the Law to Modernise the Nationality Law entered into force. The modernisation law abandoned the principle of avoiding multiple nationality and allowed Germans to hold multiple nationalities. One of the declared aims of the law was to adapt the existing Nationality Law to ‘the requirements of an immigration society’. In 2024, some 14 per cent of the population in Germany did not hold a German passport – just over twelve million people. Of these, some 5.3 million had been living in Germany for at least ten years. It was hoped that by allowing multiple nationality many immigrants would acquire German nationality in addition to the nationality of their home State. In its explanatory memorandum on the Bill to Modernise the Nationality Law, the Federal Government stated: The principle of avoiding multiple nationality, which is anchored in German nationality law, represents an obstacle for many people wishing to be naturalised. Many foreigners consider themselves to belong to Germany, but do not want to completely cut off their ties with their country of origin, which they see manifested in their previous nationality. The change in the law to some extent aligned the legal situation with reality. For some time, the principle of avoiding multiple nationality had no longer corresponded to the actual naturalisation practice. For the last fifteen years, on average more than half of all naturalisations led to multiple nationality and the trend was rising. In 2018, 59.3 percent of naturalised persons retained at least one other nationality; 2019: 61.9 per cent; 2020: 63.2 per cent; 2021: 69 per cent; and 2022: 74.1 per cent. This resulted in the number of Germans with multiple nationality steadily increasing since 2000. By 2024, the principle of avoiding multiple nationality was therefore no longer the rule, but the exception.

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