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On 8 November 2016, German foreign fighter Abdelkarim El B. was convicted of membership in a terrorist organisation abroad, illegally possessing a Kalashnikov, and committing a war crime by treating a protected person in a gravely humiliating or degrading manner. He had travelled to Syria in September 2013 in order to fight for ISIL. On 7 November 2013, El. B. and his fellow ISIL fighters found the corpse of a Syrian army soldier. While the defendant was filming and verbally encouraging them, the other fighters cut the nose and ears of the dead body, stepped on it and then shot it in the face.  On 10 February 2014, he was arrested at the German Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and extradited to Germany on 25 February 2015. Abdelkarim El B. was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months of imprisonment. 

The Stockholm District Court found L. I. guilty for her involvement in IS’ campaign against the Yazidi community. After establishing that IS’ August 2014 Sinjar offensive and the subsequent pattern of killings, enslavement, rape, forced transfer of children, and destruction of religious sites amounted to genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes, the court examined L. I.’s individual accountability.

The nine victims in the case—three women and six children—were all Yazidis captured during the Sinjar attack after their male relatives were executed or went missing. They were moved through various IS collection points and bases in Iraq and Syria, where they endured severe abuse and were traded as slaves. Ultimately, all nine victims came under L. I.’s control at her residence in Raqqa.

The court found that L. I. knowingly accepted these enslaved Yazidis into her home, treated them as her property, and kept them in captivity. She controlled their movement, forced household chores, restricted their food, and physically assaulted at least one woman and one child. She compelled the women and older children to attend Qur’an lessons, pray multiple times daily, and banned the use of the Kurmanji language. She also prohibited Yazidi religious and cultural practices and forced women and girls to wear religiously prescribed clothing. Repeatedly, she called them “infidels” and “slaves” and, in some cases, played IS execution videos to threaten them. L. I. also arranged staged photographs of the victims for sale within IS’ slavery network and helped transfer two family groups to other IS members, knowing they would face further rape, suffering, and separation.

The court concluded that these actions, carried out with IS’ genocidal intent, constituted genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes. It sentenced her to 12 years in prison and awarded 150,00 SEK in moral damages to each surviving victim.

Several villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, filed a civil suit against oil and gas company Exxon Mobil. They argued that the company carried responsibility for human rights violations committed by Indonesian security forces by hiring these forces and because Exxon Mobil knew or should have known that human rights violations were being committed.

After the District Court allowed the case to proceed in part, the plaintiffs presented an amended complaint, which was assessed again by the District Court. It allowed most of these claims, which were based on the laws of the District of Columbia, to proceed. Exxon appealed to this ruling, but the Court of Appeals stated that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the appeal. The Court also refused to compel the District Court to dismiss the case.