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Between April and July 1994, as much as ten percent of the entire Rwandan civilian population (75 percent of all Tutsis) was murdered in an ethnic conflict in which the Hutus sought to eliminate the Tutsis. At the same time, an armed conflict was fought between the Rwandan government army (FAR) and the armed forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The RPF were a rebel army primarily composed of descendants of Rwandan Tutsi who fled from Rwanda in preceding years.

The accused, Joseph Mpambara, fled Rwanda for the Netherlands. He was arrested and brought before the Dutch courts on charges of war crimes, torture and genocide. While the Dutch courts deemed themselves without jurisdiction for genocide, the District Court of The Hague did convict Mpambara for torture.

The Court of Appeal also convicted him for war crimes - inter alia for his participation in a massacre against thousands of refugees in a church - and increased his 20 years' prison sentence to life imprisonment.

The Rwandan government suspects the Jean-Claude Iyamuremye, a Rwandan national residing in the Netherlands, of having taken part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide as Interahamwe militia leader. He is indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. On 25 September 2013, Rwandan authorities issued an extradition request with the Netherlands. The accused challenged the request, arguing that war crimes were not prohibited as such in Rwandan law in 1994, and that therefore he cannot be extradited. He also alleged that Rwanda would not provide him with a fair trial; if he were to be extradited, the Netherlands would violate their obligations forthcoming from the European Convention for Human Rights (ECHR).

The Court dismisses both arguments. Since genocide was prohibited by both Rwandan and Dutch law in 1994, the double criminality requirement has already been fulfilled. And concerning fair trial rights, the Court found that it was obliged to apply a marginal test, since the Netherlands and Rwanda are both parties to the Genocide Convention and, thus, have to trust each other on fulfilling their respective treaty obligations. It ruled that extradition would not lead to a flagrant denial of a fair trial; hence the Court ruled the extradition request admissible.

Darko Knesevic was born in Banja Luka (former Yugoslavia) on 10 October 1964. On 1 November 1995, the Officer of Justice of the District Court in Arnhem, the Netherlands, requested a preliminary inquiry into which legal authority was competent in the case against Knesevic. Knesevic was suspected of killing two Bosnian Muslims, threatening others and transferring them to a concentration camp, and attempting to rape two women, while he was part of an armed group serving as part of the Bosnian Serb militias that killed Bosnian Muslim civilians during the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995).

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands (Hoge Raad), relying on the Geneva Conventions’ concept of universal jurisdiction, ruled that the Dutch military chambers could consider the case even though the alleged crimes were committed outside the Netherlands.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) was founded in 1976 in response to the growing feeling amongst the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka during the 1960s and 1970s that they were discriminated against by the Singhalese majority. Ultimately, a comflict ensued that developed into a guerilla war opposing the LTTE to the Singhalese with the objective of attaining independence for the Tamil minority.

The present case concerns one of five ethnic Tamils, all naturalised Dutch citizens, charged by the Public Prosecutor of membership in the LTTE and having funded its activities from The Netherlands. In the course of the trial before the District Court of The Hague, the court found that the defendant was a leader of the Tamil Coordinating Committee in The Netherlands, and therefore a member of the LTTE itself. The defendant had undertaken various fundraising activities through the sale of lottery tickets, collecting donations at meetings and extorting money from Tamils living in The Netherlands. Having identified the LTTE as a criminal organisation, in line with US, Indian, EU and Canadian policy, the Court convicted the defendant of membership in and participating in the LTTE and sentenced him to 5 years’ imprisonment.