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Several villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, filed a civil suit against oil and gas company Exxon Mobil. They argued that the company carried responsibility for human rights violations committed by Indonesian security forces by hiring these forces and because Exxon Mobil knew or should have known that human rights violations were being committed.

In this phase of the proceedings, the defendants requested the Court to dismiss the case, most importantly because they argued that the plaintiffs, being non-residents, could not sue in a US Court. The Court agreed with the defendants, stating that no exception should be made in this case to the general rule that non-residents cannot sue in a US court.    

In this second-instance verdict, the Appellate Division upheld the first-instance verdict and found the accused Mladen Blagojević guilty of crimes against humanity. The Division sentenced him to seven years of  imprisonment. The other three accused, Zdravko Božić, Zoran Živanović and Željko Zarić, were acquitted.

What happens if a country suspects a national of another country of being involved in the murder of one of its officials? In many cases, the former country will request an extradition of the suspect. But what happens if the latter country refuses?

In this case, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, having lost one of its own at the hands of a Mexican drug cartel, took matters in its own hands and forcibly abducted one of the suspects, Humberto Alvarez—Machain. In the United States, he was indicted for participation in kidnap and murder. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeal established that the forcible abduction stood in the way of Alvarez-Machain’s trial in the United States. The Supreme Court disagreed, stating that while crossing another state’s border to abduct someone might constitute a violation of international law, it was not a violation of the extradition treaty. Relying on previous case law, the Supreme Court established that Alvarez-Machain’s forcible abduction did not prohibit his trial in a United States court.

Paul Touvier was a collaborator in Vichy France. He was arrested after World War II on charges of treason and collaborating with the enemy and sentenced to death but escaped in 1947 and escaped prosecution for the next 43 years. The statute of limitations for these sentences elapsed in March 1967. However, time limitations for crimes against humanity were abolished in France in 1964, and Touvier was arrested on 24 May 1989 and charged with complicity in crimes against humanity. He was accused of crimes against humanity, committed while carrying out his function as local leader of the Second Service of the Militia in Lyon: involvement in raids, the arrest, torture and deportation of resistance members and the execution of seven Jews in Rillieux on 28 and 29 June 1944.

However, the Court of Appeal in Paris found that, apart from the crimes committed in Rillieux, there was not enough evidence to indict Touvier and declared the charges inadmissible. The Court also ruled that the remaining charge, the crimes committed in Rillieux, could not be classified as crimes against humanity, thus rendering the charge invalid as the period of prescription period had elapsed.

The Cour de Cassation reversed the Court of Appeal’s decision, but only with regards to the murders in Rillieux. The Cour de Cassation ruled that the events in Rillieux in fact constituted crimes against humanity.