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After the civil war in Papua New Guinea, which led to Bougainville obtaining a more autonomous position, several inhabitants of that island sued the mining company Rio Tinto, basically for its role in the war and the process leading up to it. The plaintiffs claimed that Rio Tinto’s mining activities had harmed their health and the environment, and that they had helped the Papua New Guinea government in, among other things, setting up a blockade with disastrous results for the population. In this instance, the District Court had to rule whether referring the plaintiffs back to the Papua New Guinean legal system should be considered. The District Court held that this would be inappropriate with regard to the plaintiffs’ claims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and racial discrimination, as these claims are of ‘universal concern’.

With the case back at the Court of Appeals, the question to be determined was the scope of the jurisdiction of the ATCA with regard to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity arising from a blockade and racial discrimination. The Court held that genocide and war crimes fall within the scope of the ATCA. These norms, according to the Court, are specific, universal and obligatory accepted and extend to corporations. However, the crimes against humanity arising from a blockade and the racial discrimination claims are not and, therefore, the case was remanded to the District Court for further proceedings on the claims of genocide and war crimes.

A Canadian human rights organization filed a complaint against a Canadian mining company which operated in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC), on behalf of several Congolese victims (and relatives of victims) of violence committed by the army of the DRC in October 2004. Allegedly, Anvil Mining Ltd. provided the army with, for example, jeeps and cars to reach Kilwa, were the human rights violations were committed.

Anvil protested against the complaint filed, arguing that the Court in Québec did not have jurisdiction. The Superior Court disagreed and stated that Anvil’s activities in Québec and the mining activities in the DRC were sufficiently linked for the Court to have jurisdiction. Moreover, the Court stated that it did not consider courts in either the DRC or Australia, were the main office was located, more suitable to deal with this case. The Court of Appeal overturned this judgment, stating that the Quebec office of Anvil primarily focussed on investors and stakeholders. Therefore, the link with events in the DRC could not be established. Furthermore, it held that the complaint could also be heard in another country, most specifically Australia. Therefore, the Court found that authorities in Quebec did not have jurisdiction. 

Following the death of Rwandan President Habyariamana in April 1994, an interim government was established in Rwanda within which Callixte Nzabonimana held the position of Minister of Youth and Associative Movements.

The Trial Chamber found that Nzabonimana was a figure of authority in Gitarama as a result of this position and his role in the political party, MNRD. Evidence presented led the Trial Chamber to conclude that the Accused had used this position of authority to direct the Hutu civilian population and commune policemen to attack the Tutsi’s. He did so by making a number of speeches, and further, by threatening local officials with death or replacement in the event that they opposed the killing of Tutsis.  His orders were carried out by Hutu civilians and by commune policemen who proceeded to attack and kill Tutsi civilians. Accordingly, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted the Accused of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Under the authoritarian regime of Major General Barre in Somalia, the Somali Armed Forces perpetrated a number of human rights abuses against the Somali civilian population, in particular against members of the Isaaq clan.

The petitioners, all members of the Isaaq clan, allege that in the 1980s and 1990s they suffered ill-treatment at the hands of the Somali military including acts of rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention. They instituted a civil complaint against Mohamed Ali Samantar, the then-Minister of Defence and later Prime Minister of Somalia on the basis of the Torture Victims Protection Act.

After a line of litigation spanning 3 years and culminating in a Supreme Court decision in 2010, proceedings against Samantar were allowed to continue as he did not enjoy immunity.

Samantar accepted responsibility in February 2012; the present decision by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held Samantar liable as a superior for the crimes perpetrated by his subordinates in the Somali Armed Forces and the affiliated national intelligence services against the plaintiffs who were awarded $21 million in damages. 

Reynaldo Bignone, born in 1928, was the de facto president of Argentina from 1982 to 1983 and the last dictator to hold power in the country. As such, he was appointed by the military junta and sought to impose amnesty laws for perpetrators of gross human rights violations before transferring power to the democratically elected Raul Alfonsin. Nevertheless, in 2005 the Argentinean Supreme Court overturned these amnesties and opened the way for prosecutions of those involved in the country’s 1976-1983 “Dirty War”. Since then, Reynaldo Bignone was charged and convicted of crimes against humanity in several trials on the basis of his involvement in the Dirty War. 

In the current case, Federal Criminal Oral Tribunal No. 6 of Buenos Aires sentenced Bignone to 15 years' imprisonment for crimes against humanity for the implementation of a systematic plan to abduct and appropriate 31 children between 1976 and 1983. Other accused were sentenced to terms ranging from 5 to 50 years in prison.