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The Arusha Accords brought an end to the civil war in Rwanda that had opposed the government to the Tutsi dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front. They introduced a transitional multi-party government with Habyarimana of the Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MRND) as its President. Following the death of the president on 6 April 1994, however, hostilities broke out once more.

The MRND, with the Accused Ngirumpatse as its President and his co-Accused Karemera as its Vice President proceeded to introduce and implement measures designed to target the Tutsi population. They actively supported the Interahamwe, a civilian militia that acted as the youth wing of the MRND, and which was resopnsible for the mass killing as well as the rape and sexual assault of countless Tutsi women. The Accused interfered with the territorial administration in Rwanda, warning local officials to support the Hutu policy and replacing any who opposed the killing of Tutsis. They travelled across governemnt controlled parts of Rwanda and espoused their anti-Tutsi policy with a view to inciting more killings.

By a judgment of 2 February 2012, Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found both Accused guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit the same, direct and public incitement of the same, rape and extermination as crimes against humanity and the war crime of killing. They were both sentenced to life imprisonment. The judgment comes after 7 years of trial, the withdrawal of three judges, the death of one co-Accused and the controversial decision taking judicial notice that a genocide occurred in Rwanda in 1994, thereby alleviating the Prosecution of having to introduce evidence in order to prove the allegation beyond a reasoinable doubt.

Between 2004 and 2008, Italian courts had issued a number of judgments in which plaintiffs, victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the German Reich during WWII, were awarded damages against Germany.

Ultimately, in 2008, Germany filed an application instituting proceedings against Italy before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), arguing that "[i]n recent years, Italian judicial bodies have repeatedly disregarded the jurisdictional immunity of Germany as a sovereign State", thus violating international law. Italy disagreed, stating that the underlying acts were violations of jus cogens and therefore gave it the right to strip Germany from its immunity. Greece joined the proceedings as one of the Italian judgments concerned a declaration of enforcability by an Italian court of a Greek judgment that ordered Germany to pay compensation to victims of the Distomo massacre (in Greece). This declaration led to measures of constraint on German property in Italy.

The Court rejected Italy's claims and fully agreed with Germany's points. State immunity is part of customary international law, and the fact that the underlying acts (the WWII crimes) were violations of jus cogens did not deprive Germany from its jurisdictional immunity.

Importantly, though, the Court notes that while the current judgment confirms jurisdictional immunity of states, this does not in any way alter the possibility to hold individuals criminally responsible for certain acts.

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.

The petitioners, all 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 culminating in a Supreme Court decision in 2010, proceedings against Samantar were allowed to continue as he did not enjoy immunity.

Samantar accepted responsibility in February 2012; the present decision by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held Samantar liable as a superior for the crimes perpetrated by his subordinates in the Somali Armed Forces and the affiliated national intelligence services against the plaintiffs who were awarded $21 million in damages. 

The crimes perpetrated by the Nazis during Hitler’s reign against Jewish citizens were some of the worst recorded in history. Although accurate figures may never be known, it is estimated that some 6 million Jewish individuals died – men, women, and children from all over Europe. They were deported from their homes in large freight trains in appalling conditions, others starved or froze to death, others still were taken away to concentration camps where the fit were forced to perform manual labour whilst the weak were shot to death or later, gassed to death in their thousands.

The Accused, Adolf Eichmann, was an Austrian by birth who volunteered to work for the Security Service (SD) in Berlin. He rose through the ranks and eventually occupied the position of Head of Section (Referant) for Jewish Affairs charged with all matters related to the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. In this capacity, he oversaw the transport and deportation of Jewish persons, set up and personally ran an operations centre in Hungary in order to implement the Final Solution there, organised the transfer of money from evacuated Jews to the State and was responsible for the administration of the camps at Terezin and Bergen-Belsen.

He was captured by Israeli Security Forces in Argentina and handed over to the District Court of Jerusalem to stand trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people. He was convicted of all 15 counts and sentenced to death. He was unsuccessful in contesting the jurisdiction of the Court or defending his actions by relying on superior orders.

The crimes perpetrated by the Nazis during Hitler’s reign against Jewish citizens were some of the worst recorded in history. Although accurate figures may never be known, it is estimated that some 6 million Jewish individuals died – men, women, and children from all over Europe. They were deported from their homes in large freight trains in appalling conditions, others starved or froze to death, others still were taken away to concentration camps where the fit were forced to perform manual labour whilst the weak were shot to death or later, gassed to death in their thousands.

The Appellant, Adolf Eichmann, was an Austrian by birth who volunteered to work for the Security Service (SD) in Berlin. He rose through the ranks and eventually occupied the position of Head of Section (Referant) for Jewish Affairs charged with all matters related to the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. In this capacity, he oversaw the transport and deportation of Jewish persons, set up and personally ran an operations centre in Hungary in order to implement the Final Solution there, organised the transfer of money from evacuated Jews to the State and was responsible for the administration of the camps at Terezin and Bergen-Belsen.

He was captured by Israeli Security Forces in Argentina and handed over to the District Court of Jerusalem to stand trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people. He was convicted of all 15 counts and sentenced to death by the District Court of Jerusalem. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of Israel and he was executed by hanging a few minutes before midnight on 31 May 1962.