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Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen, was Osama bin Laden’s driver. Captured in Afghanistan in 2001, he was transferred to the United States detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in 2002. Initial attempts to make him stand trial for crimes of conspiracy before a United States military commission were ultimately unsuccessful as the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that trial before such a commission would be unlawful. In response, Congress passed the 2006 Military Commissions Act on the basis of which Hamdan was newly charged for counts of conspiracy and material support for terrorism. He was tried and convicted by a military commission for material support for terrorism and sentenced to 66 months’ imprisonment, which he concluded in his native Yemen in 2008.

The present decision is the result of his appeal against his conviction. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated Hamdan’s conviction on the grounds that material support for terrorism was not a war crime under international law prior to 2001 at the time of Hamdan’s relevant conduct, therefore the military commission could not try and convict him on this basis. 

On 5 April 2010, ten Somalis attacked the Taipan, a container ship sailing under the German flag off the Horn of Africa. The Dutch naval forces arrested the Somalis and, on 10 June 2010, transferred them to Germany. The trial commenced on 22 November 2010, representing the country’s first piracy trial in 400 years.

On 19 October 2012, the Hamburg Regional Court found the Somalis guilty and handed down sentences ranging between two and seven years.

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.

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.

After a line of litigation spanning 3 years and including a Supreme Court decision, Samantar accepted liability as a superior for the crimes perpetrated by his subordinates in the Somali Armed Forces and the affiliated national intelligence services. The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia awarded $21 million in damages.

The present decision by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is the result of Samantar’s appeal against the District Court’s dismissal of his claims for immunity from proceedings. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal finding that Samantar enjoys no immunity for acts of torture, summary execution and arbitrary detention even if they were performed by him in his official capacity as such conduct is universally prohibited. 

In August 1995, the Croatian forces conducted a rapid offensive attack against the Krajina region of Croatia which had the purpose of removing ethnic Serbs, and make the region suitable for Croats instead. Both Gotovina and Markač were in a high military position that controlled the operation in Krajina.

Trial Chamber I found that both Gotovina and Markač had participated in a joint criminal enterprise (JCE, a mode of criminal responsibility in the jurisprudence of the Tribunal), which aimed to remove all Serbs from the Krajina region. Trial Chamber I found them guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes; General Gotovina received a 24 year sentence, while Markač received 18 years imprisonment.

The Appeals Chamber considered that Trial Chamber I had erred in its analysis of the lawfulness of artillery attacks on four towns in Croatia. This error led the Appeals Chamber to reverse Trial Chamber I’s finding regarding the existence of a JCE to remove the Serb population from the Krajina region. This, in turn, resulted in the reversal of all convictions entered by Trial Chamber I under this mode of responsibility. Unable to enter convictions on any alternate modes of responsibility, the Appeals Chamber acquitted both Gotovina and Markač of all charges and ordered their immediate release.

Reynaldo Bignone, born in 1928, was the de facto president of Argentina from 1982 to 1983 and the last dictator to hold power in the country. As such, he was appointed by the military junta and sought to impose amnesty laws for perpetrators of gross human rights violations before transferring power to the democratically elected Raul Alfonsin. Nevertheless, in 2005 the Argentinean Supreme Court overturned these amnesties and opened the way for prosecutions of those involved in the country’s 1976-1983 “Dirty War”. Since then, Reynaldo Bignone was charged and convicted of crimes against humanity in several trials on the basis of his involvement in the Dirty War. 

On 20 October 2011, he was tried for crimes committed at the clandestine detention and torture centre Hospital Nacional “Profesor Alejandro Posadas”. Bignone was accused of crimes against humanity for the illegal deprivation of liberty of 22 persons and torture against five of them. He was found guilty in first instance on 29 December 2011 was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. On 28 November 2012, the Federal Chamber of Criminal Appeals confirmed the verdict and the sentence.