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Hissène Habré was the President of the Republic of Chad from 1982 until 1990. During that time, he established a brutal dictatorship which, through its political police, the Bureau of Documentation and Security (Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS)), caused the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals. Residing in exile in Senegal, he was unsuccessfully brought before the Senegalese courts in 2000-2001 at which time the Supreme Court of Senegal confirmed that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case as the acts allegedly committed by Habré were not criminalised under domestic law. In response to an African Union mandate to prosecute Habré, Senegal amended its legislation to provide for universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and acts of torture committed by foreign nationals outside of Senegalese territory.

Habré brought a complaint against Senegal before the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of States of West Africa alleging that the new legislation breached his human rights, including the principle of non-retroactivity of the criminal law. The Court held, in a decision that has been criticised for lack of legal basis, that Senegal would violate the principle of non-retroactivity if its tried Habré in its domestic courts. Instead, international custom mandates that Senegal establish a special tribunal to try and prosecute Habté. 

On 11 April 2000, a Belgian investigating judge of the Brussels Tribunal of First Instance issued an arrest warrant in absentia against the incumbent Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Abdulaye Yerodia Ndombasi, charging him with offences constituting grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions I–IV (1949); Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I (1977); Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol II (1977), and crimes against humanity. In the warrant, Mr Yerodia was accused of inciting racial hatred in various speeches in the DRC in August 1998, which had contributed to the massacre of several hundred persons and, thus, he was charged as perpetrator or co-perpetrator of these crimes. The arrest warrant, which asked States to arrest, detain, and extradite Mr Yerodia to Belgium, was transmitted to the DRC in June 2000 and simultaneously circulated internationally through Interpol. On 14 February 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled that the issuance and circulation of the arrest warrant violated Belgium’s international obligations towards the DRC in that Belgium failed to respect, and infringed, Mr Yerodia’s immunity as Minister for Foreign Affairs and the inviolability enjoyed by him under international law. The Court required Belgium to cancel the arrest warrant and inform as such the authorities to whom it was circulated.

The President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, had planned a visit to the Netherlands from 6 to 8 October 2010. The government in exile of the Republic of South Moluccas (RMS) filed a complaint in the Netherlands and requested the Indonesian President to be arrested upon arrival in the Netherlands, and furthermore, that he would be prosecuted for human rights violations committed against Moluccan detainees.

On 14 October 2010, the District Court of The Hague dismissed the case because President Yudhoyono as head of state could not be prosecuted (head of state immunity).

On 22 November 2011, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision.

Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar was a Chilean economist, socialist politician, diplomat and foreign minister during the presidency of the socialist President Salvador Allende. He became a refugee in the United States following the military dictatorship of General August Pinochet (1973-1990). On 21 September 1977, together with Ronni Moffitt, his American aide, they were assassinated by DINA (the Chilean secret police under Pinochet) agents after an explosive device was detonated under Orlando Letelier’s automobile.

In 1978, their relatives sued Chile and several individuals allegedly involved in the case. The District Court of Washington D.C. found that it had jurisdiction over the action and found the defendants to have killed Letelier and Moffitt while acting within the scope of their employment. The Court awarded more than $5,000,000 to the families of the two victims.