Universal Jurisdiction

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France’s Highest Court Confirms Universal Jurisdiction

June 1, 2023

In November 2021, the Criminal Chamber of the French Cour de cassation, shocked the international criminal law community (see here and here) by considering that French courts did not have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity committed in Syria because Syria was not party to the Rome Statute and did not criminalise crimes against humanity as such in its domestic legal framework. Thankfully the plenary assembly of the Cour de cassation reversed that decision last month in the Nema and Chaban cases. The French universal jurisdiction framework The French universal jurisdiction framework is complex and depends on the crimes prosecuted. France transposed the 1984 Convention against Torture, the 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) differently into its domestic system. For the crimes of torture and enforced disappearance, French courts are competent as soon as the suspect is on French territory when the…

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New universal jurisdiction case filed in Germany for crimes committed in Myanmar before and after the coup: On complementarity, effectiveness, and new hopes for old crimes

March 7, 2023

A few days before the second anniversary of the ‘failed coup’ in Myanmar, a case was filed in Germany against senior Myanmar military generals and ‘other actors’ identified in the complaint for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It was filed under universal jurisdiction enshrined in the German Code of Crimes against International Law (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch…

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One Year On – Remembering the Al-Khatib Syrian Torture Case and Reflecting on the Documentation of International Crimes Cases in German Courts

January 12, 2023

One year ago, on 13 January 2022, the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz, Germany, convicted Anwar R, a senior member of the Syrian General Intelligence Service, of at least 4,000 cases of torture, the murder of 27 people and multiple cases of sexual violence as a crime against humanity in the context of the infamous Al-Khatib prison…

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Public Interest Litigation Before Domestic Courts in The Netherlands on the Basis of International Law: Article 3:305a Dutch Civil Code

March 6, 2020

In recent years, the domestic courts in The Hague (Netherlands) have produced a series of judgments on matters of global concern, adjudicated on the basis of international law. All of these judgments have immediately been heralded as “a new classic” or “the most important court decision […] in the world…

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Misunderstanding of International Aviation Law May be Behind Iran’s Shootdown of the U.S. Global Hawk Drone

July 1, 2019

On Thursday, June 20, the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) shot down an unarmed U.S. surveillance drone, nearly igniting open conflict between the United States and Iran. The $180 million U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk was struck by an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGCN) surface-to-air missile launched from near Goruk, Iran. With strained relations…

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