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Sylvère Ahorugeze was a Rwandan national and former director of the Rwandan Civil Aviation Authority and Kigali international airport. An international arrest warrant was issued against him on the basis of his alleged participation in the crime of genocide (intentional destruction of a national, racial, ethnical or religious group or part of it) and crimes against humanity (crimes committed on large scale including but not limited to murder, rape, torture) committed in Rwanda in 1994. On 16 July 2008, Ahorugeze was arrested in Sweden and on 7 July 2009, the Swedish government decided that he could be extradited to Rwanda. 

Subsequently, Ahorugeze filed an application at the ECtHR.  He claimed that his health was poor, and that his Hutu ethnic background, the prison conditions in Rwanda, and a lack of impartiality and independence of the judiciary were factors that should prevent his extradition to Rwanda. The Court dismissed his case and held that there were no reasons to believe that Ahorugeze would be subjected to inhumane or unfair treatment in Rwanda and that he would not receive a fair trial.

Julio Simón was a member of the Argentinean Federal Police during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983 and had been charged with kidnapping, torture, and forced disappearance of persons. Julio Simón argued as his defence that he benefited of immunity from prosecution under the Amnesty Laws of 1986-1987.

In 2001 a lower court had declared the Amnesty Laws unconstitutional. After successive appeals the issue came before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Amnesty Laws were unconstitutional and void for several reasons. First, since the adoption of the Amnesty Laws, international human rights law developed principles that prohibited states from making laws aimed at avoiding the investigation of crimes against humanity and the prosecution of the responsible people. By incorporating the ACHR and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights into the Constitution, Argentina assumed the duty to prosecute crimes against humanity under international law. Because the Amnesty Laws were designed to leave serious human rights violations unpunished, they violated these treaties and the Constitution of Argentina. Moreover, in the Barrios Altos v. Peru case the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that states should not establish any measures that would prevent the  investigation and prosecution of serious human rights violations.

Hissène Habré was the President of the Republic of Chad from 1982 until 1990. During that time, he established a brutal dictatorship which, through its political police, the Bureau of Documentation and Security (Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS)), caused the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals.

Residing in exile in Senegal, victims of Habré’s regime instituted proceedings against him in Belgium on the basis of Belgium’s universal jurisdiction law. In order to try Habré, Belgium requested Senegal to extradite him. By the present decision, the Court of Appeal of Dakar held that it was incompetent to grant the request as Habré enjoys immunity from jurisdiction by virtue of his position as the former Head of State of the Republic of Chad. This decision is the precursor to a line of litigation that will culminate in the decision of the International Court of Justice regarding Senegal’s obligation to prosecute or extradite Habré.

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands affirmed the strong approach to dual attribution taken by the Court of Appeal and dismissed the appeal. It found that it is possible for both the Netherlands and the UN to have effective control over the same wrongful conduct and that attributing this conduct to the Netherlands did not in any way determine whether the UN also exercised effective control over the Dutchbat troops (pp. 22-23, para. 3.11.2).

This case is important, as it marks the first time an individual government has been held to account for the conduct of its peacekeeping troops operating under a UN mandate. Liesbeth Zegveld, the Dutch lawyer who represented the victims, stated that “a U.N. flag doesn’t give...immunity as a state or as an individual soldier.” As a result of this judgment, two Bosnian families are now expected to receive damages from the Dutch state, and other cases may follow.

On 27 January 2015, the Hague Court of Appeal convicted Omar H. for training for terrorism and making preparations to commit arson and/or an explosion. Thus, the Appeals Court agreed with the District Court of Rotterdam that Omar H. had prepared to commit arson and/or an explosion. However, it distanced itself from the District Court’s finding that Omar H. had not trained for terrorism as, according to the District Court, his actions could not be considered as “training”. On the contrary, the Hague Court of Appeal decided that training for terrorism had to be interpreted broadly. Researching how to make bombs online, and buying items to make explosive devices in light of Omar H’s interest in jihad and travel to Syria were sufficient to prove he had trained himself to commit a terrorist crime. Omar H. was sentenced in total to 18 months’ imprisonment by the Court of Appeal.