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Desiré Bouterse, a Surinamese politician, was born on 13 October 1945. Bouterse led a coup d’état in 1980 and became the military leader of Suriname until 1987. Relatives of victims of the so-called December murders of 8 and 9 December 1982, when 15 opponents of the military regime headed by Bouterse were tortured and subsequently killed, brought a complaint against Bouterse in the Netherlands. On 18 September 2001, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands dismissed the action against Bouterse. The Court held that Bouterse could not be prosecuted because he was not connected in any way to the Netherlands. Moreover, the acts committed under the military dictatorship of Bouterse were not criminalised as such at the time they were committed.

Residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki jointly brought an action against the government of Japan for the damages they and members of their families suffered as a result of the atomic bombings by the United States in August 1945.

Among other things, it was alleged that the dropping of the atomic bombs was an unlawful act and that Japan's waiver of claims for damages under domestic and international law against the US gave rise to an obligation for the government of Japan itself to pay damages.

The Court held that the dropping of atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were violations of the laws and customs of war, because the attacks did not distinguish between military and civilian targets and inflicted unnecessary suffering. The Court ruled that the bombings, as an indiscriminate bombardment on undefended cities were unlawful acts.

With regard to the claim of the plaintiffs for damages, the Court ruled that individuals did not have rights under international law unless specifically provided for. Since this was not the case, the Court held that individuals could not claim damages directly under international law. The claim was dismissed by the Court on this ground.

Between April and July 1994, as much as 10% of the entire Rwandan civilian population was murdered in an ethnic conflict in which the Hutus sought to eliminate the Tutsis. At the same time, an armed conflict was fought between the Rwandan government army (FAR) and the armed forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The RPF were a rebel army primarily composed of descendants of Rwandan Tutsi who fled from Rwanda in preceding years.

The accused, Joseph Mpambara, fled Rwanda for The Netherlands. He was arrested and brought before the Dutch courts on charges of war crimes, torture and genocide. Although the Dutch courts deemed themselves without jurisdiction for genocide, Mpambara was initially convicted for torture. The Court of Appeal also found him guilty of war crimes and increased his 20 years' prison sentence to life imprisonment. Mpambara appealed at the Supreme Court, arguing that the previous judgment - especially the use of evidence from witnesses he could not examine and the issuance of a life sentence - was in violation of his fundamental rights (as found in the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR), namely his rights to a fair trial and to protection against inhumane treatment.

The Supreme Court found the grounds of appeal unfounded, dismissed Mpambara's appeal, and confirmed the Court of Appeals' judgment and sentence. 

William Laws Calley Jr. was born on 8 June 1943 in Miami, Florida. Calley was a former army officer in the United States and found guilty of killing hundreds of unarmed, innocent South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre on 16 March 1968 which took place during the Vietnam War. After several reductions, Calley’s original sentence of life in prison was turned into an order of house arrest, but after three years, President Nixon reduced his sentence with a presidential pardon.

Momčilo Perišić was born on 22 May 1944 in Koštunići, Serbia. During the period August 1993 until December 1998, he was chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army (VJ). The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague started criminal proceedings against him. Perišić was found guilty of planning and executing an attack on Srebrenica, at the time of the attack an area considered a so-called “safe area”, and for the killings of thousands of Muslims living there. In addition, Perišić was also found guilty for killing seven people and injuring approximately 200 people in Zagreb on 2 and 3 May 1995 with the help of the Army of Serbian Krajina (SVK). Perišić appealed against the decision. On 28 February 2013, the ICTY acquitted Perišić and subsequently released him.