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When Rwandan President Habyariamana was killed on 6 April 1994, it reignited ethnic tensions in Rwanda between the Hutu and Tutsi populations, which had earlier in the same decade culminated in a bloody civil war.

Omar Serushago was the de facto leader of the civilian Interahamwe militia, one of the primary perpetrators of the crimes committed against Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the genocide of 1994. In his official capacity, Serushago led a group of militiamen in raids against Tutsis seeking refuge in parish churches, on commercial property, in bishop’s houses, and even those who were detained in the Gendarmerie station jail. Tutsis would then be summarily executed, some personally at the hands of Serushago. Having pleaded guilty to one count of genocide and three counts of crimes against humanity (assassination, extermination and torture), Serushago was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment by the Trial Chamber. By a decision of 14 February 2000, the Appeals Chamber dismissed Serushago’s arguments that the sentence against him was excessively long. The present decision contains the reasons of the Appeals Chamber for having reached this conclusion. 

In March 2003, Phil Pritchard and Toby Olditch, peace activists, entered the bases of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and tried to disable the planes located there. They acted in an attempt to prevent a crime by the U.K. and the U.S., namely the preparation of a war against Iraq. Two other activists, Margaret Jones and Paul Milling, also entered the RAF base. All the activists were charged in the U.K. In their defence, they claimed that the actions of the U.K. and the U.S. were illegal. Their defence was rejected by the English courts because the alleged crime was a crime under international law but not under English criminal law.

The heirs of a Palestinian landowner and the council of a Palestinian town sue two Canadian companies in Québec, claiming that by carrying out Israeli construction orders, they are assisting Israel in war crimes.

The Superior Court of Québec dismissed the claim, stating that the Israeli High Court of Justice would be a more suitable place to argue this case. Still, the judge did recognise that a person committing a war crime could be liable under civil law, for example a person who ‘knowingly participates in a foreign country in the unlawful transfer by an occupying power of a portion of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies’.

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.

Djamel Ameziane is an Algerian national who has been detained at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) since 2002. On 6 August 2008, a petition was launched to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of Djamel Ameziane alleging that Ameziane, while in US custody, has been subjected to torture, cruel and degrading treatment and if he would be transferred back to Algeria, he would be at risk of serious harm. On 20 August 2008, the IACHR issued an Urgent Precautionary Measure, requesting the US to take all measures necessary to ensure that Ameziane would not be subjected to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment.

The IACHR examined the admissibility, and on 20 March 2012, it concluded that the petition filed on behalf of Ameziane is admissible. The Commission established that it had personal and temporal jurisdiction. With respect to territorial jurisdiction, it found that the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man allowed for an extraterritorial scope where the person concerned was subject to the control of State party to the Declaration despite the fact that the person was physically present on the territory of a different State. The Commission found no other procedural obstacles that would prevent it from proceeding to the merits phase of the case, and therefore, found the case to be admissible.