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Guus Kouwenhoven, a Dutch national, carried out business operations in Liberia since the 1980s. He was the owner and president of two logging companies in operation during the second civil war in Liberia from 1999-2003. The civil war was fought between the Liberian armed forces led by President Charles Taylor on one side and rebel groups on the other. It was alleged that Taylor had financial interests in Kouwenhoven’s businesses and that these businesses were used to facilitate the commission of war crimes. 

Kouwenhoven was charged with a number of crimes related to war crimes committed in Liberia and faced a string of cases in Dutch courts between 2006-2018. In its decision of 21 April 2017, the Court of Appeal in ’s-Hertogenbosch convicted Kouwenhoven and sentenced him to 19 years’ imprisonment for illegally importing weapons and ammunition and complicity in war crimes committed by Charles Taylor’s regime. Kouwenhoven was not protected from prosecution by the Liberian Amnesty Scheme introduced by Charles Taylor’s government prior to Taylor’s resignation. The Court found that Kouwenhoven had deliberately provided the weapons used for the war crimes committed by the combined Liberian armed forces and therefore was an accomplice to these war crimes.

Germany surrender World War II on 8 May 1945. The surrender mandated the cessation of military activities against the United States and its allies. The 27 Accused in the present case are all German nationals who were resided in China during the duration of the war. They were members of the German military intelligence agency, Bureau Ehrhardt, or the German propaganda agency, the German Information Bureau in China. Included amongst the accused were Ernst Woermann, German ambassador to occupied China, and Elgar von Randow, Counsellor of the Shanghai office of the German Embassy.

They were indicted by the Prosecutor of the United States Military Commission in China for war crimes, namely, for assisting the Japanese armed forces in the conduct of military activities against the United States and its allies. They were variously alleged to have collected and disseminated military information and distributed propaganda to the Japanese. The Military Commission convicted 21 of the 27 accused and handed down terms of imprisonment ranging from 5 years to life imprisonment for Lothar Eisentrager, the head of the Bureau Ehrhardt. The Military Commission was required to address a number of questions including the exercise of jurisdiction by the Court since the accused were all German nationals and the crimes were not committed on US territory, as well as whether the crimes with which the accused were charged amounted to war crimes under international law at the time of their commission. 

In June 1944, German occupation forces in Greece massacred more than 300 inhabitants of the village of Distomo and burnt the village to the ground, as reprisal for a partisan attack on German troops. In 1995, proceedings against Germany were instituted before the Greek courts, by over 250 relatives of the victims of the massacre, claiming compensation for loss of life and property. The Court of Livadia, Greece, held Germany liable and ordered it to pay compensation to the claimants. Germany appealed to the Greek Supreme Court, on the ground that it was immune from the jurisdiction of the Greek courts, on the basis of state immunity.

The Greek Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and rejected Germany’s claim of jurisdictional immunity. The Court denied German immunity applying Article 11 of the European Convention on State Immunity, considered to correspond to customary international law. Moreover, the Court held that violation of peremptory norms would have the legal effect of implicitly waiving the jurisdictional immunity. It reasoned that torts in breach of rules of peremptory international law cannot be claimed to be acts jure imperii, concluding that Germany, by breaching jus cogens, had implicitly waived its immunity.

The three Accused – Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean Bosco Barayagwiza and Hassan Ngeze - were charged in separate indictments but were tried jointly for their role in the Rwandan genocide. They were all charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and persecution and extermination as crimes against humanity. Nahimana and Barayagwiza were additionally charged murder as a crime against humanity, while Barayagwiza was also charged with war crimes.

On 3 December 2003, Trial Chamber I of the ICTR found the three Accused guilty of conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and persecution and extermination as crimes against humanity. They were found not guilty of complicity in genocide and of murder as a crime against humanity. Barayagwiza was also acquitted of the charges for war crimes. The Chamber sentenced Nahimana and Ngeze to life imprisonment. Regarding Barayagwiza, the Chamber considered that the appropriate sentence was life imprisonment, but, in its decisions dated 31 March 2000, the Appeals Chamber had decided that for the violation of his rights, the Accused was entitled to a reduction of his sentence, if he was found guilty. Therefore, the Trial Chamber sentenced him to twenty-seven years, three months and twenty-one days. 

Marko Samardžija was the commander of the 3rd Company of the Sanica Battalion within the 17th Light Infantry Brigade. He has been accused of ordering soldiers under his command, on 10 July 1992, that the Bosniak (Muslim) population from the settlements of Brkići and Balagića Brdo (in the Ključ Municipality) leave their houses, after which the men older than 18 and younger than 60 were brought to the primary school in Biljani. From there, the men were murdered in groups of 5 to 10, which led to the deaths of at least 144 Bosniak men.  

On Appeal, the Court found the Accused guilty of Crimes against Humanity for the deprivation of liberty of these men, since they were forcefully moved from their homes and taken to the primary school. The Court did not find him guilty of aiding in the murders, since this was not a clear and obvious consequence of his acts.

Therefore on 15 October 2008, the Appellate Division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Marko Samardžija guilty of crimes against humanity (depriving of liberty) and sentenced him to seven years imprisonment.