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From 1975 until 2002, Indonesia illegally occupied East Timor. Throughout this period, a number of pro-independence groups formed in order to fight for Timorese independence and combat the abuses perpetrated by members of the Indonesian armed forces and the pro-autonomy militia groups with whom they allied themselves.

One such pro-independence group was the Forcas Armadas de Libertacao Nacional de Timor Leste (FALINTIL). In September 1999, three members of the group, imcluding Carlos Soares, were travelling under orders to a village when they were joined by a fourth individual. Seemingly randomly and without reason, Soares stabbed the fourth member of the group through the back using his spear. The victim died. The Special Panels for Serious Crimes convicted Soares of premeditated murder contrary to the Indonesian Penal Code. His sentence was reduced to 4 year 6 months’ impirosnment, however, on account of his diminished mental capacity at the time of the act. The Court took into consideration his sense of grief, loneliness and sadness as a result of the deaths of 6 of his relatives one or two days prior to the murder. 

In August 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden. In retaliation, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on the El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, arguing that it was a base for terrorism. Later, it was proven that the plant had no ties to terrorists. Therefore, El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries brought complaints against the United States in the US Court of Federal Claims.

In March 2003, the US Court of Federal Claims dismissed the complaints as non-justiciable based on the ‘political question doctrine’ (which foresees that courts have no authority to hear or adjudge on matters that raise political, rather than legal, questions).

In August 2004, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the decision of the Court of Federal Claims, finding that the complaints raised a non-justiciable political question. The Court reached this conclusion on the basis of the fact that the President is entrusted by the Constitution to render as enemy property the private property of an alien situated in a foreign country.

On 24 March 1980, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was killed in the Chapel of the Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador. The killing was planned and coordinated by officers of the Salvadoran military, including Alvaro Rafael Saravia. As a result of the influence of these persons, no one was convicted for the killing of Archbishop Romero.

In 2003, the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) filed a suit on behalf of relatives of Archbishop Romero against Alvaro Rafael Saravia, who went into hiding after he was served with the complaint.

In November 2004, the U.S. District Court Eastern District of California found Saravialiable for the assassination of Archbishop Romero and awarded a total of $10,000,000.00 in damages.

Miroslav Deronjić was brought before the ICTY for his role in the commission of crimes in the village of Glogova in Bosnia and Herzegovina in May 1992. The attack resulted in the deaths of Bosnian Muslims and the destruction of their properties and homes. Deronjić pleaded guilty to the charge of persecution as a crime against humanity and, subsequently, Trial Chamber II found him guilty. He was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.

He appealed the imposed sentence, adducing four grounds of appeal.

First, he argued that Trial Chamber II reached its conclusions on the basis of evidence that was not among the documents agreed upon with the Prosecution. Furthermore, he asserted that Trial Chamber II erroneously found that it was not bound to apply a more lenient penalty than the national laws of the former Yugoslavia would envisage. The Appeals Chamber concluded that those domestic laws do not bind the Tribunal and thus his argument could not be upheld. In his last two grounds of appeal, Deronjić argued that Trial Chamber II made errors in the assessment of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. The Appeals Chamber found, however, no errors.

As a result, all four grounds of appeal were dismissed and the sentence of 10 years of imprisonment was upheld.

In the period of April 1992 until March 1993 a large-scale armed conflict was taking place in the Foča municipality. During this time Neđo Samardžić was a member of the army of the so-called Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As part of this army, Samardžić committed and helped commit killings, forced people to relocate, forced women into sexual slavery, held women in a specific camp where they were raped, and persecuted (Muslim) Bosniak civilians on national, religious, ethnical and gender grounds.

The first instance Court sentenced Samardžić to imprisonment for a term of 13 years and 4 months. Where in first instance the accused was found guilty of 4 counts, on appeal the Appellate Panel established that the accused had committed the acts in counts 1 through 9. Furthermore the Court found that there were several aggravating circumstances, such as the fact that the accused repeated the acts, he expressed particular brutality, which caused severe physical and mental pain to the injured parties and the fact that at the time of the crimes some of the injured parties were still very young girls. Moreover the accused had a prior conviction for murder. Therefore on 13 December 2006, believing that it corresponded with the degree of his criminal responsibility, his motives and the intensity and degree of the protected value, theAppellate Panel found Samardžić guilty of Crimes against Humanity and sentenced him to an imprisonment of twenty-four years, more than ten years more than in first instance.