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On 5 March 2011, four Somalian men armed with submachine guns attempted to board and hijack the Guanabara, a Japanese Mitsui O.S.K. Lines tanker in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Oman. They were captured by the US Navy, and subsequently extradited to Tokyo, Japan, on request of the Japanese coastguard.

Two suspects, Mohamed Urgus Adeysey and Abdinur Hussein Ali, pleaded guilty. From the other two suspects, who were both juvenile at the time the crimes took place, one pleaded guilty and the other not guilty. The Tokyo District Court found all four guilty though, and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from five to eleven years.

On 15 September 2011, while on patrol in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan, UK Marines Sergeant Alexander Blackman and his men were on patrol. They found a Taliban insurgent who had been seriously wounded (lawfully) by an Apache helicopter, and as such formed no longer a threat. After removing his AK47, magazines and a grenade, Blackman caused him to be moved to a place where you wanted to be out of sight of his operational headquarters at Shazad so that "PGSS can’t see what we’re doing to him". He ordered those of his men giving some first aid to stop, and when he was sure headquarters could not see him, he discharged a 9mm round into his chest from close range. He then told his patrol to remain silent about what happened, saying that he had just broken the Geneva Convention.

Taking into consideration Blackman's superior position as sergeant (under command of the patrol) and the consequences his acts could have for other British soldiers - namely possible reprisals - the Court found Blackman guilty of murder in violation of the laws of war (a war crime). He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a possibility for parole after ten years, stripped of his ranks and dismissed from service with disgrace.

In its self-declared “War on Terrorism,” the United States began the “High Value Detainee” program, where suspected terrorists would be subjected to special interrogation and detention. The program was managed by the CIA, which detained suspects in secret detention facilities (“black sites”) in cooperation with other foreign governments.

Poland cooperated with the program by allowing the transfer of suspected terrorists through its territory, as well as their detention in a secret facility in Stare Kiejkuty, Poland. An alleged member of al-Qaeda, Mr. Zayn Al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn (known as Abu Zubaydah), was held in the Stare Kiejkuty for nine months, where he was subjected to treatment amounting to torture.

The European Court of Human Rights found that as Polish authorities knew what their territory was being used for, Poland shares responsibility for any abuses committed by the CIA on its territory.

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.  

On 1 December 2014 Ms. Shukri F., a young Dutch woman, was acquitted on two charges by the District Court of The Hague. She was charged with 1) recruiting people to join the armed struggle in Syria, and; 2) incitement to commit terrorist crimes and dissemination of and collecting inciting material. Although the Court acquitted her, the Prosecutor appealed. 

The defendant was allegedly active in spreading the virtues of Islamic orthodoxy in multiple ways. First, she used social media and gave lectures about Islam. Second, she encouraged multiple women (some underage) to marry and to depart to Syria. Third, she married a man who she supported in his wish to go to Syria. After he had left for Syria she divorced him and married another man, Maher H., who she also encouraged to depart to Syria.

The Court of Appeal ruled that it could not establish that the defendant recruited people to join the armed struggle in Syria. It could establish, however, that 2 videos she had posted on Twitter amounted to the dissemination of inciting materials. For that reason she was sentenced to a suspended imprisonment term of 6 months and a probation period of 2 years.