Search results

The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 opposed East Pakistan and India to West Pakistan and resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh. The conflict commenced as a result of a military operation launched by the State of Pakistan (then West Pakistan) against Bengali civilians, students and armed personnel who were demanding the military regime of the State of Pakistan to either honour the results of the 1970 democratic elections, which had been won by an East Pakistan party, or allow the secession of East Pakistan from West Pakistan. In response, Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians formed the Mukti Bahini and engaged in guerrilla warfare against the West Pakistan Army with the financial, logistical and diplomatic support of India. The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) was set up in Bangladesh to prosecute those in Bangladesh responsible for committing atrocities in the course of the armed conflict.

The present judgment was rendered by the ICT against Moulana Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar, a member of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami opposed to an independent Bangladesh. He provided aid to the Pakistani Army and subsequently became the leader of the Al-Badr force, a paramilitary wing of the West Pakistan Army, which operated in East Pakistan against the Bengali nationalist movement. On 21 January 2013, in its first ever judgment, the ICT convicted Azad and sentenced him to death for his crimes. The sentence cannot, however, be carried out until Azad has been located. His trial was held in absentia as he is believed to have fled Bangladesh. 

Hungary joined the Axis powers during World War II, effectively bringing the Hungarian police and the Gendarmerie, a paramilitary police unit, under the control and direction of the German SS. Imre Finta, originally a Hungarian national, was an officer and later a captain in the Hungarian Gendarmerie. In 1944, he was dispatched to Szeged to implement the Baky Order, a decree introduced by the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior calling for the isolation, exporpriation, ghettoization, concentration, entrainment and eventual deportation of all Hungarian Jews. In connection with this order, Finta was allegedly responsible for the detention of 8 617 Hungarian Jews in brickyard, forcibly stripping them of their valuables and deporting them to concentration camps under appalling conditions.

Under new Canadian war crimes legislation, Finta (a Canadian national and resident since 1956) was brought before the Toronto court to stand trial for eight counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was acquitted by a jury and this decision was upheld by a majority of the Court of Appeal of Ontario. The present decision was rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada and constituted the final appeal in the case against Finta. By a narrow margin of 4:3, the appeal was dismissed, as Finta did not possess the necessary mens rea for war crimes and crimes against humanity and the Baky Order, on which he relied, did not appear as manifestly unlawful at the time of its enactment.

We often associate genocide with the act of killing members of a specific group, of which there have been many devastating examples throughout history. However, according to the Genocide Convention, other acts can also be regarded as genocide, if they are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, specific groups. In this case, the plaintiff held that building a bridge to Hindmarsh in South Australia would impede on the culture and way-of-life of the Ngarrindjeri in such a dramatic way that it would lead to the destruction of this group. However, at that point, genocide was not a crime under Australian national law. The plaintiff therefore invoked legislation from the UK, arguing that application of this legislation was possible because of the fact that the UK preceded the current Commonwealth of Australia in governing the Australian continent and its adjacent islands. The judge did not accept this argument and reiterated that even when international law prohibits genocide, someone can only be found guilty of genocide if national legislation explicitly prohibits genocide. The claim was denied.

In 2002, with the adoption of the International Criminal Court Act 2002, genocide became a crime under Australian law.

In June 1944, German occupation forces in Greece massacred more than 300 inhabitants of the village of Distomo and burnt the village to the ground, as reprisal for a partisan attack on German troops. In 1995, proceedings against Germany were instituted before the Greek courts, by over 250 relatives of the victims of the massacre, claiming compensation for loss of life and property. The Court of Livadia, Greece, held Germany liable and ordered it to pay compensation to the claimants. Germany appealed to the Greek Supreme Court, on the ground that it was immune from the jurisdiction of the Greek courts, on the basis of state immunity.

The Greek Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and rejected Germany’s claim of jurisdictional immunity. The Court denied German immunity applying Article 11 of the European Convention on State Immunity, considered to correspond to customary international law. Moreover, the Court held that violation of peremptory norms would have the legal effect of implicitly waiving the jurisdictional immunity. It reasoned that torts in breach of rules of peremptory international law cannot be claimed to be acts jure imperii, concluding that Germany, by breaching jus cogens, had implicitly waived its immunity.

The complaint against Radovan Karadžić was filed by victims and survivors of the crimes committed in Bosnia during the Bosnian War in 1992-1995. They requested compensation for the suffering they have experienced. The crimes alleged include, but are not limited to rape, murder, beatings, and emotional distress.  

On 4 October 2000, the District Court ordered Radovan Karadžić to pay $4.5 billion in damages to the victims and survivors.