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Anton Lekaj, born in 1980, was a member of the ‘Cipat’ group within the military police forces of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1999, there was an ongoing conflict between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo.

Between 12 and 15 of June 1999, Lekaj, together with other members of the KLA, detained 13 non-Albanian civilians and transferred them to premises in the Pastrik Hotel. The 13 civilians were beaten, tortured, sexually abused, and some of them were even killed.

Lekaj was arrested in August 2004 and charged with war crimes against civilians. He was subsequently tried in Serbia. On 18 September 2006, he was found guilty for his participation in the crimes and was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment.

Mirsad Bektašević, Abdulkadir Cesur, Bajro Ikanović, and Senad Hasanović were indicted in 2005 on charges of terrorism for their intended commission of terrorist acts, including a suicide bombing attack in order to coerce the Bosnian government or other European governments to withdraw their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found the accused guilty with respect to both terrorism and the attempted obstruction of an official. The sentences handed down ranged between 15 years 4 months and 6 months.

Mirko Todorović was born on 15 May 1954 in the village of Bratunac in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Miloš Radić was born on 5 June 1959 in the village of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Todorović and Radić were found guilty of participating in an attack conducted in Bratunac on 20 May 1992, which was directed against Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) civilians. On that day, Todorović and four other members of the Serbian army arrested 14 Bosniak civilians and brought them to a house where one of the civilians was killed. Todorović, together with Radić, did not allow the other civilians to leave the house. The civilians were beaten, cursed, and their money and valuable items were taken away. Subsequently, the civilians were brought to a slope on a nearby creek, lined up and killed.

Zijad Kurtović, a commander of a military police platoon of the Bosnian army, was accused of involvement in war crimes committed during the war between Croatia and Bosnia (1992-1995). More specifically, he was charged with torturing and otherwise inflicting serious mental and physical harm to Croatian civilians and prisoners of war in a Roman Catholic church in October 1993, by beating them, forcing them to eat pages from the Bible, using and ordering others to use Croatian civilians and prisoners of war as human shields on the frontlines, and with forcing two detained HVO soldiers to perform an oral sexual intercourse. In first instance, Kurtović was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.

Kurtović appealed on several grounds, arguing that the first instance Panel had erred in law (using the wrong law) and in fact (wrongly established certain facts). The prosecution also appealed against the sentence, which was, in its view, too lenient. The Appellate Panel partly agreed with Kurtović where it concerned the classification of the crimes. It could not be established with certainty which victims had been combatants; however, as it was evident that all detained persons were entitled to protection under common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and that they were to be qualified (as is usual under the law of war in case of doubt) as civilians. However, the findings on the facts remained further unchanged. Therefore, the Appellate Panel amended the conviction to only include war crimes against civilians and the wanton destruction of religious monuments. The prosecutor’s appeal was dismissed; the 11-year prison sentence was upheld.

In 2001 the Presbyterian Church of Sudan filed a lawsuit against the Canadian oil and gas producer, Talisman Energy, under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, which provides US courts with original jurisdiction over certain tort claims filed by aliens. In the suit, it was claimed that Talisman aided the Government of Sudan in the commission of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to the claim, Talisman worked alongside the Sudanese Government in the creation of buffer zones around certain oil fields, which effectively assisted human rights violations and the perpetration of international crimes in order to gain access to oil by displacing the population living in the areas around the oil fields and attacking their villages.

The District Court of New York dismissed the claim on 12 September 2006. On 3 October 2009, the decision was affirmed by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  The Court of Appeals held that, due to previous case law, it had to look at international law to decide what standard was applicable to establishing aiding and abetting liability for human rights violations. Turning to international law, the Court held that purposefully intending the violations, rather than knowledge of the violations alone, was the applicable standard. So, in order to determine liability under the Alien Tort Claims Act the plaintiffs must show that “Talisman acted with the “purpose” to advance the Government’s human rights abuses.” The Court held that the claimants had failed to establish that Talisman “acted with the purpose to support the Government’s offences”.