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Under the authoritarian regime of Major General Barre in Somalia, the Somali Armed Forces perpetrated a number of human rights abuses against the Somali civilian population, in particular against members of the Isaaq clan.

The petitioners, all members of the Isaaq clan, allege that in the 1980s and 1990s they suffered ill-treatment at the hands of the Somali military including acts of rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention. They instituted a civil complaint against Mohamed Ali Samantar, the-then Minister of Defence and later Prime Minister of Somalia on the basis of the Torture Victims Protection Act.

The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the grounds that Samantar enjoys immunity from proceedings before courts of the United States by virtue of his function as a State official at the relevant time under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. This decision is the first in a line of proceedings that culminated in November 2012 by which the plaintiffs, victims of the regime, sought damages for the harm they suffered. 

Under the authoritarian regime of Major General Barre in Somalia, the Somali Armed Forces perpetrated a number of human rights abuses against the Somali civilian population, in particular against members of the Isaaq clan.

The petitioners, all members of the Isaaq clan, allege that in the 1980s and 1990s they suffered ill-treatment at the hands of the Somali military including acts of rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention. They instituted a civil complaint against Mohamed Ali Samantar, the-then Minister of Defence and later Prime Minister of Somalia on the basis of the Torture Victims Protection Act.

The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the grounds that Samantar enjoys immunity from proceedings before courts of the United States by virtue of his function as a State official at the relevant time under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

By the present decision, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the decision, arguing that the FSIA is not applicable to individuals, and even if it were, the individual in question would have to be a government official at the time of proceedings commencing against him. 

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. 

During IDF operations against terrorist infrastructure in the areas of the Palestinian Authority (“Operation Defensive Wall”), a dispute arose about burial rights. The Palestinian petitioners requested that the IDF be ordered to cease checking and removing the bodies of Palestinians that had been killed during the course of warfare in the Jenin refugee camp, and that the IDF be ordered not to bury those ascertained to be terrorists in the Jordan valley cemetery. Petitioners also requested to acknowledge that the tasks of identifying and removing the bodies were the responsibility of medical teams and the Red Cross, and that the families be allowed to bring their dead to a quick and honorable burial. 

The Supreme Court of Israel held that the government was responsible, under international law, for the location, identification, and burial of the bodies. As such, teams will be assembled for the location, identification and removal of bodies. The government agreed that the Red Cross should participate in these activities and would "positively consider the suggestion" that the Red Crescent also participate, according to the discretion of the Military Commander. Furthermore, it was established that the identification process be completed as quickly as possible, and will ensure the dignity of the dead as well as the security of the forces. At the end of the identification process, the burial stage will begin; the government allowed the Palestinians to do this themselves, as long as they did it in a timely manner and without threatening Israeli security. Also, no differentiation will be made between bodies (e.g. between the bodies of civilians and the bodies of declared terrorists).

Between 1931 and 1945, some 200,000 women were forced into sexual slaverty by the Japenese Army. These women, referred to as “comfort women” were recruited through forcible abductions, deception and coercion. Once captured, they were taken by the Japanese military to “comfort stations”, that is, facilities seized or built by the military near the front lines for express purpose of housing these women. Once there, the women would be repeatedly raped, tortured, beaten, mutilated and sometimes murdered. They were denied proper medical attention, shelter and nutrition.

The present lawsuit was brought by fifteen former “comfort women” against Japan on the basis of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The United States District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the action on the grounds that Japan enjoyed immunity from proceedings as a sovereign State and the action did not fall within any of the exceptions to immunity enumerated in the FSIA. On appeal, the present decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the decision of the District Court.