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In April 2012, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was found guilty of providing arms, financial and moral support to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council rebel forces. With the aim of destabilizing the country and gaining access to the natural resources of Sierra Leone (mainly diamonds), he supported the RUF in the preparation of military actions in Sierra Leone (in the districts of Bo, Kono, Kenema, Bombali, Kailahun, Freetown). During the military actions, civilians were killed, beaten, terrorised, raped, and abducted. Children were also abducted and involved in the military actions.

Charles Taylor was sentenced to fifty years of imprisonment.

On 26 September 2013, the Appeals Chamber of the SCSL confirmed that Charles Taylor assisted and planned numerous crimes committed during the Sierra Leone's civil war by the RUF and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council rebel forces. The Appeals Chamber also confirmed the fifty years’ sentence. 

In the 1970s, the “Derg” military government took over the state power in Ethiopia. This “Red Terror” regime included a violent crackdown on rebel groups and other political opponents, including the Ethiopian Peoples Revolution Party (EPRP), with whom the Derg was engaged in a non-international armed conflict. In an effort to eradicate the EPRP, the accused Eshetu Alemu, the sole representative of the Derg in the Gojjam region, ordered the unlawful arrest of around 300 alleged party members. They were detained in cruel and inhumane conditions and subjected to torture and killings. 

The Court of Appeal established that Alemu knew and participated in these war crimes and sentenced him to life imprisonment, upholding the verdict of the District Court of The Hague in 2017. 

The investigation and prosecution of these crimes began after an investigative journalist published an article about the defendant in 1998. He had been living in the Netherlands, holding Dutch nationality at that point and had not been held accountable for the atrocities. 

In 1994, an armed conflict between the Rwandese government forces and the Rwandese Patriotic Front and the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens in Rwanda and the elimination of approximately 75% of the Tutsi population.

Joseph Mpambara was a member of the interahamwe militia who fled Rwanda for Kenya and finally the Netherlands after 1994. He is charged with having murder, rape, kidnapping, hostage taking and torture against several Tutsi individuals including young children who were hacked with machetes after being forced out of an ambulance with their mother. Since the Accused is a non-Dutch national and the crimes with which he is charged did not occur on Dutch territory and did not implicate Dutch nationals in any way, the question of jurisdiction arose.

In the present decision, the Supreme Court of The Netherlands rejected the appeal of the Public Prosecutor against the earlier decision of the Court of Appeal of The Hague. The Supreme Court confirmed that Dutch Courts have no jurisdiction over the crime of genocide allegedly committed by the Accused. This does not, however, bar prosecution of the Accused for war crimes and torture.