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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.

On 12 August 2001, a group of armed individuals under the leadership of Johan Tarčulovski entered the village of Ljuboten in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The men targeted ethnic Albanians through shootings, setting houses on fire and mistreating the captured people. During this time, Ljube Boškoski was the Minister of Interior of FYROM.

 Trial Chamber II examined the incidents at Ljuboten and other locations. It concluded with respect to Boškoski that he knew that crimes were being committed in and around Ljuboten, and since he reported the incidents to the authorities that should have investigated these allegations, fulfilled his obligations to take steps to punish those who were responsible. Accordingly, he cannot be held guilty on any of the charges.

 Tarculovski, on the other hand, was actively participating in the events of 12 August 2001. He was the leader of the operation and participant in the events. Therefore, Trial Chamber II found him guilty for the war crimes of murder, wanton destruction and cruel treatment. He was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment.

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, he was unsuccessfully brought before the Senegalese courts in 2000-2001 at which time the Supreme Court of Senegal confirmed that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case as the acts allegedly committed by Habré were not criminalised under domestic law. In response to an African Union mandate to prosecute Habré, Senegal amended its legislation to provide for universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and acts of torture committed by foreign nationals outside of Senegalese territory.

Habré brought a complaint against Senegal before the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of States of West Africa alleging that the new legislation breached his human rights, including the principle of non-retroactivity of the criminal law. The Court held, in a decision that has been criticised for lack of legal basis, that Senegal would violate the principle of non-retroactivity if its tried Habré in its domestic courts. Instead, international custom mandates that Senegal establish a special tribunal to try and prosecute Habté. 

On 7 June 2011, Aisha Gaddafi, the daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, filed a claim against NATO in Belgium. She argued that the NATO bombing in Tripoli on 30 April 2011 killed her daughter, her brother and other family members. Aisha Gaddafi asserted that the NATO forces specifically attacked the building that was not used in support of any military action. She claimed that the bombing constituted war crimes.

On 27 July 2011, the Belgium prosecutors announced that they decline to investigate the complaint on the basis of the absence of connection between the victims or the defendants and Belgium. 

After the ‘Coastal Road Massacre’ of 11 March 1978 in Israel, the injured victims of the attack and relatives of the deceased attempted to take legal action in the United States against several non-state organisations and Libya, which they considered responsible for the attack. They based their action on, most importantly, a paragraph of the US Code which allows aliens to file action against an alleged violation of the law of nations or a treaty. 

After the District Court had dismissed their case, the Court of Appeals had to assess the plaintiffs’ appeal against this Opinion. It turned out that the Appellate Panel disagreed on basically everything except on the final conclusion: the dismissal was affirmed. Judge Bork denied the existence of a right to sue altogether, stating that nor the law of nations, nor treaties provided the plaintiffs with this right. Judge Robb considered the questions to be answered in this case too political to be answered in a court. Matters regarding the international status of terrorist acts and sensitive matters of diplomacy should be left to politicians, in his opinion.