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During the Vietnam war, the United States used herbicides (including ‘Agent Orange’) in an effort to deprive the enemy of places to hide in forests and agricultural lands. In the decades after the war, reports on detrimental health effects of Agent Orange started coming out.

In this case, a Vietnamese organisation and several Vietnamese individuals did not sue the United States directly, but claimed that several chemical corporations by manufacturing the herbicides had violated national and international law. The Court rejected their claims based on national law, as under US law product liability against government contractors is barred.

Although the Court held that corporations can be held liable under international law, it also rejected the international law based claims as it did not find any international legal obligation which prohibited the US from using herbicides during the Vietnam war. The Court especially emphasised that the herbicides were not used with the specific intent to harm persons, but to ‘kill plants’. The Court held that since the use of herbicides during the Vietnam war had not been illegal, the manufacturers were not liable. The case was dismissed.

A group of Dutch individuals and organisations filed a claim against the Netherlands asking for the arrest of George W. Bush. The proceedings were filed in advance of Bush’s visit to the Netherlands in his capacity as US President.

The American Service-Members’ Protection Act of 2002 (ASPA) allows the US to invade Dutch territory to liberate American or Israeli military personnel in the event that they are detained by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The petitioners said that such an incursion might result in many casualties and would violate international law. Therefore, they claimed that the ASPA constitutes a threat against the Netherlands, its citizens, and the ICC, and had to be assigned to George W. Bush.

On 5 April 2005, the District Court dismissed the case. The Court held that it cannot hear cases presenting political questions. In addition, the Court held that it could not prosecute George W. Bush because he enjoyed immunity as head of state.

Agathe Habyarimana (maiden name: Agathe Kanziga) is the widow of former Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, whose death on 6 April 1994 marked the beginning of the Rwandan genocide that was to result in the death of some 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus within the lapse of a few months. Agathe Habyarimana is frequently regarded as one of the powers behind Juvénal habyarimana’s Presidencey and as part of the inner circle responsible for the planification and organisation of the Rwandan genocide. On 9 April 1994, she was airlifted to France.

In July 2004, she applied for refugee status but her application was denied by the French Office of Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). By the present decision, the Appeals Commission for Refugees confirmed the rejection and concluded that she had participated in the planning, organising and direction of the genocide in Rwanda since 1990. 

In 1994, Tharcisse Muvunyi held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Rwandan army and was stationed at the École des Sous-Officiers in Butare Prefecture.

On 11 February 2010, the Trial Chamber of the ICTR convicted Muvunyi of direct and public incitement to genocide based on his statements made at a public meeting at the Gikore Trade Centre in Butare prefecture in early May 1994. He was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.   

Muvunyi appealed his conviction and sentence and requested the Appeals Chamber to overturn his conviction. The Prosecution also appealed the judgment and requested the Appeals Chamber to increase the sentence to 25 years of imprisonment.

The Appeals Chamber of the ICTR dismissed both appeals and upheld the Accused’s sentence to 15 years of imprisonment.

On 6 March 2012, the President of the ICTR, Judge Vagn Joensen, granted Muvunyi's application for early release since more than three quarters of his sentence had been served.

Al-Mahmudiyah (Iraq), 12 March 2006: in the afternoon, US Army Sergeant Steven Green and members of his unit Paul Edward Cortez, James Paul Barker, Jesse Von-Hess Spielman and Bryan Lee Howard were playing cards and drinking whiskey at a traffic checkpoint, when Green stated that he wanted to kill some Iraqi civilians because of the deaths of several fellow infantrymen. After Green persisted, Barker eventually agreed to go along with Green’s plan, and he told Green that he knew a nearby house where an Iraqi man and three females (his wife and two daughters of 6 and 14 years old) lived. Barker also suggested that they have sex with one of those females. Green and Barker persuaded Cortez and Spielman to accompany them (pp. 2-3). They secretly left the compound, approached the house of the Al-Janabi family, killed the father, mother and youngest dauther and proceeded to gang-rape the other daughter, Abeer Qassim Hamsa. After this, they killed her as well and lit her body on fire.

The fire was discovered the next morning by civilians; it was reported to the US army compound and investigations were initiated. Although the initial outcome was that the perpetrators had probably been Iraqi counterinsurgents, rumours started spreading that US soldiers had raped and killed Iraqi civilians. Eventually, suspician fell on Green and consorts.  barker, Cortez and Howard were tried by court martial where they pleaded guilty; they received prison sentences. Green, however, had been discharged from the army on 28 March 2006 due to a personality disorder. Hence he had to be tried by a civil court. The US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky sentenced him to life imprisonment. In appeal, this decision was upheld.