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Viktor Bout, a notorious international arms dealer also known as the Merchant of Death, was alleged of trafficking weapons to several African warlords, dictators in the Middle-East and the Colombian FARC. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) decided to catch him through a sting operation in which DEA officers posed as FARC fighters and discussed with him a multimillion-dollar weapons transaction supposedly in order to aid the FARC in its fight against the Colombian government and the United States. The operation succeeded and Bout was caught by police forces in Thailand.

The US charged him with conspiracy to kill US nationals and officials and with conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation (the FARC). Initially, Bout managed to have the Thai Criminal Court prohibit his extradition due to it being politically motivated. However, in appeals the decision was overturned and Bout was extradited to the US in 2010. A US jury found him guilty on all charges in 2011 and on 5 April 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment - the minimum sentence, since the judge had found "no reason to believe Bout would ever have committed the charged crimes".

In July 1995, the safe haven of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina was attacked by Bosnian Serb forces resulting in the deaths of between 8 000 and 10 000 individuals. Members of the Dutch battalion who were responsible for the safeguarding of the enclave were completely overrun by the forces of General Mladic. In 2007, a civil action was filed before the District Court of The Hague by 10 women whose family members died in the genocide as well the Mothers of Srebrenica, a Dutch association representing 6 000 survivors. They are demanding compensation from the United Nations and the Kingdom of the Netherlands by alleging that both are responsible for the failure to prevent the genocide at Srebrenica.

In the present decision, the Supreme Court upheld the earlier decisions of the District Court of The Hague and the Court of Appeal of The Hague confirming that the UN enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution, even in light of the gravity of the accusations alleged by the Mothers of Srebrenica.

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. 

On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte assumed power in Chile as a result of a military coup that overthrew the then government of President Allende. Pinochet was the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army until 1974 when he assumed the title of President of the Republic. His presidency lasted until 1990 and his role as Commander in Chief until 1998. His regime was known for its systematic and widespread violations of human rights, with allegations of murder, torture and hostage taking of political opponents.

In 1998, during a visit to the United Kingdom for medical treatment, Pinochet was arrested by the English authorities with a view to extraditing him to Spain where a Spanish judge had issued an international arrest warrant. His extradition was, however, not to proceed smoothly as Pinochet applied to have the arrest warrant quashed on the grounds that as a former Head of State he enjoyed immunity from criminal proceedings.

By the present decision, the High Court of Justice quashed the arrest warrant on the grounds that Pinochet enjoyed immunity from criminal proceedings under the 1978 State Immunity Act. However, the Court delayed the effect of the quashing until such time as the matter had been decided on appeal to the House of Lords. 

We often associate genocide with the act of killing members of a specific group, of which there have been many devastating examples throughout history. However, according to the Genocide Convention, other acts can also be regarded as genocide, if they are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, specific groups. In this case, the plaintiff held that building a bridge to Hindmarsh in South Australia would impede on the culture and way-of-life of the Ngarrindjeri in such a dramatic way that it would lead to the destruction of this group. However, at that point, genocide was not a crime under Australian national law. The plaintiff therefore invoked legislation from the UK, arguing that application of this legislation was possible because of the fact that the UK preceded the current Commonwealth of Australia in governing the Australian continent and its adjacent islands. The judge did not accept this argument and reiterated that even when international law prohibits genocide, someone can only be found guilty of genocide if national legislation explicitly prohibits genocide. The claim was denied.

In 2002, with the adoption of the International Criminal Court Act 2002, genocide became a crime under Australian law.