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Jelisić was brought before the ICTY for his role in the commission of crimes in the municipality of Brčko (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 1992. 

Jelisić pleaded not guilty to genocide and guilty to war crimes and crimes against humanity. With respect to genocide, Trial Chamber I found him not guilty due to insufficient evidence to sustain his responsibility. For the crimes to which he pleaded guilty, Trial Chamber I sentenced him to 40 years of imprisonment. Therefore, Trial Chamber I’s acquittal of genocide was appealed by the Prosecutor, and Jelisić was allowed to respond.

The Appeals Chamber allowed the Prosecution’s first two appeals, in which it upheld the argument that Trial Chamber I erred when entered an acquittal without first hearing the Prosecution, and when applied an erroneous legal standard which led it to incorrectly assess the evidence.

The Appeals Chamber was unable to conclude that Jelisić did not possess the special intent required for genocide (the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group). However, the Appeals Chamber declined to reverse the acquittal on genocide.

The Appeals Chamber found an error in Trial Chamber I’s finding that Jelisić was guilty of two murders, when in fact he pleaded guilty to only one.

Jelisić’s sentence was affirmed.

Indonesia illegally occupied East Timor from 1975 until 2002. In the course of this occupation, members of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) collaborated with local militia groups for the purposes of identifying, questioning and attacking alleged or known independence supporters.

In 1999, the Accused, Francisco dos Santos Laku, was a member of the TNI. He travelled in a convoy of cars to a militia checkpoint, with an individual in custody. The individual was then handed over to the militia members who were to question and then to kill him, on Laku’s orders.

The Special Panels for Serious Crimes convicted the Accused of murder, contrary to the criminal law applicable at the time. He was sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment. Interestingly, although the Panel made findings as to the widespread and systematic nature of the crimes perpetrated by the militia, neither the indictment nor the final judgement charged the Accused with murder as a crime against humanity, a more serious offence.

Who can be held responsible in a Court of law for human rights violations? In this case, victims and relatives of victims of the South African apartheid regime sued several corporations for their involvement in South Africa in the period between 1948 and 1994. They were liable, the plaintiffs reasoned, because the police shot demonstrators “from cars driven by Daimler-Benz engines”, “the regime tracked the whereabouts of African individuals on IBM computers”, “the military kept its machines in working order with oil supplied by Shell”, and so forth. The main legal issue to be solved by the District Court was whether it had jurisdiction over this case under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), which allows non-Americans to sue in federal Court for a violation of a small group of international norms. The District Court ruled that this case did not fall within the scope of the ATCA for several reasons. They could not be qualified as state agents carrying out illegal state actions, business activities in South Africa during the apartheid era could not be defined as a breach of the ‘law of nations’ under the ATCA and neither could aiding and abetting to an international norm violation. 

Marcelino Soares was a Village Level Commander of the Indonesian Army (TNI) during the violence that followed after East Timor’s 1999 referendum concerning its independence.  On 20 April 1999 soldiers under the command of Soares arrested three pro-independence supporters on his orders. The three prisoners, Luis Dias Soares, Rafael de Jesus and Felipe de Sousa were taken to an empty building on the orders of Marcelino Soares were they were detained, interrogated and physically abused by Soares himself and his subordinates. Luis Dias Soares died as a result of the wounds inflicted on him.

Soares was charged with murder, torture and persecution by illegal detention as crimes against humanity. The Court found that Soares was responsible for the murder of Dias Soares on the basis of command responsibility, as the death of Dias Soares resulted from his omission to control the soldiers under his command. For murder (or torture, or persecution) to be considered a crime against humanity, the act must be part of a widespread and systematic attack. The Court considered this was the case, and that Soares knew about this, as he attended TNI meetings.

The Trial Court convicted Soares, on the basis of both individual and command responsibility, for murder of one person and torture and persecution of three persons, as crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to 11 years imprisonment.

The Public Defender appealed against the conviction of the Dili District Court. The Court of Appeal examined whether an error of fact (leading to an error of law) had been committed by the Trial Court, when it acknowledged the systematic character of the attack against the civilian population contextual to the conduct of the accused, the illegality of detention of victims and the command responsibility of the accused.

The Court of Appeal found that the Trial Court had not erred in these matters and confirmed the judgment of the Trial Court.

From 1985 to 1994, Vincent Rutaganira was conseiller communal (councilor)of Mubuga sector in Kibuye prefecture. On 6 May 1996, the Prosecutor of ICTR charged him with seven counts including genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, murder, extermination and other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes.

On 7 December 2004, the Prosecutor and the Accused reached an agreement, pursuant to which the latter pleaded guilty to count 16 of the indictment charging him with extermination by omission as a crime against humanity for the massacres against Tutsi civilians at Mubuga church between 14 and 17 April 1994. The Trial Chamber acquitted the Accused on the other charged for lack of evidence.

The Chamber sentenced Rutaganira to 6 years of imprisonment. It took into consideration several mitigating factors including his voluntary surrender to the Tribunal in March 2002, his guilty plea, his good behaviour while in detention, his advanced age of 60 and his ill health. The Chamber further took into account the Accused’s expression of remorse, the assistance he had provided to some victims in Mubuga sector, as well as the lack of previous criminal record.