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In the second instance verdict of the Gojko Janković case, the Appellate Panel upheld the defence appeal only in the part of the legal qualification of the acts constituting crimes against humanity. It refused all of the other points of appeal entered by the defence, including the modification of the long term imprisonment of 34 years.

The case of Gojko Janković was the second case referred by the ICTY to the Court of BiH for further processing.

During the Vietnam War in the 1960’s, the United States sprayed toxic herbicides in areas of South Vietnam. Herbicides were considered effective in meeting important US and allied military objectives in Vietnam. Vietnamese nationals and a Vietnamese organisation representing the victims of Agent Orange brought a case before US court against several US-registered companies that were deployed by the United States military during the Vietnam War. They claimed to have suffered injuries as a result of their exposure to and contamination by these herbicides.

The Plaintiffs brought the case to court under the Alien Tort Statute, which grants the district courts jurisdiction over any civil action by an alien claiming damages for a tort committed in violation of international law or a treaty of the United States. They also asserted claims grounded in domestic tort law. Plaintiffs sought monetary damages as well as injunctive relief in the form of environmental abatement, clean-up, and disgorgement of profits.

The District court determined that Plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate an alleged violation of international law because Agent Orange (toxic herbicide) was used to protect United States troops against ambush and not as a weapon of war against human populations. On 22 February 2008, the Court of Appeals confirmed this decision.

Veiz Bjelić was born on 12 September 1949 in Vlasenica. In the period from June 1992 to 26 January 1993, he was a prison guard in the “Štala” prison where Serb civilians and members of the armed forces who no longer participated in the fighting, were detained. During that time, Bjelić repeatedly raped one female person and threatened to kill her if she would tell it to someone. He also led soldiers of the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to enter the prison, where they subsequently abused Serb civilians both physically and mentally.

Bjelić was found guilty on 28 March 2003 and was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

After the civil war in Papua New Guinea, which led to Bougainville obtaining a more autonomous position, several inhabitants of that island sued the mining company Rio Tinto, basically for its role in the war and the process leading up to it. The plaintiffs claimed that Rio Tinto’s mining activities had harmed their health and the environment, and that they had helped the Papua New Guinea government in, among other things, setting up a blockade with disastrous results for the population. They relied on the Alien Tort Claims Act, a US Act which permits aliens to present a claim in a US Court when, allegedly, the law of nations has been breached. Before the District Court ruled on this case en banc, two previous panels had ruled on this case, thereby mostly focussing on the question whether or not the case should be dismissed as it touched upon questions of US foreign policy, questions which should only be addressed by the Executive Branch of the government. The Court of Appeals en banc took a different route and stated that the District Court should assess in depth whether the fact that the islanders had not exhausted local remedies should lead to dismissal of the case. To this end the Court of Appeals established a framework of applying the ‘exhaustion principle’ and referred the case back to the District Court. 

The case relates to eight Guantanamo detainees who challenged the determination of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) that they are “enemy combatants”. The case comprises the petitions of Haji Bismullah on the one hand, and of Huzaifa Parhat and six other men on the other.

Pursuant to the US Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush, where the Supreme Court found that certain provisions of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) are unconstitutional, the Court of Appeals raised the question of whether it still has subject matter jurisdiction to hear the detainees’ petitions. The Court of Appeal found that it no longer has subject matter jurisdiction, since the provisions of the DTA relating to the elimination of the habeas corpus rights (the right to challenge the legality of one’s detention) have been found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Therefore, the detainees’ petition was dismissed.