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Emmanuel Constant was born on 27 October 1956 in Haiti. He was the founder of the Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a death squad that terrorised supporters of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide who was overthrown in September 1991. Members of the FRAPH killed, put in prison, and abused supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide during the military regime that ruled Haiti between September 1991 and October 1994. Constant, as the leader of FRAPH, was convicted and found guilty for crimes committed during the military regime. He was ordered to pay $19 million in damages to three women who survived the crimes committed under Constant’s control.

Lawrence G. Hutchins III was a U.S. Marine Sergeant and a squad leader of a unit conducting counterinsurgency operations. Together with seven other U.S. Marines, they were accused of having killed Iraqi war veteran Hashim Ibrahim Awad on 26 April 2006.

The Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction due to lack of a fair trial when one of Hutchins’ primary attorneys departed shortly before the court-martial began. Hutchins was once more freed on appeal on 26 June 2013 when the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces threw out the convictions entered against him, after he has served half of his 11-year sentence. On 28 January 2014 the commanding general of the U.S. Marine Corps moved for third retrial “due to the seriousness of the charges and the amount of evidence that had been compiled through investigations.”

The case arose as a result of three brutal firearm attacks upon unarmed protesters and innocent citizens in Nigeria between May 1998 and January 1999. The plaintiffs allege that in each instance, the Chevron Corporation acted in concert with the Nigerian military and police to plan, order and execute the attacks including through the participation of Chevron security personnel and equipment, the payment of funds to the military and police, and the purchase of equipment and materials including ammunition. The plaintiffs were either summarily executed, seriously injured, burned in a fire set during the attack or tortured by the military and police thereafter. Such acts were intended to force the plaintiffs to cease their protests against Chevron’s damage to the lands and the plaintiffs’ livelihood and discourage any further behaviour.

The first case of its kind to be decided by a jury trial, Bowoto v. Chevron Corporation was decided in favour of Chevron, clearing them of all liability. The present decision is an appeal by the plaintiffs, which was ultimately unsuccessful as the Court of Appeals upheld the judgement of the District Court. 

Viktor Bout, a notorious international arms dealer also known as the Merchant of Death, was alleged of trafficking weapons to several African warlords, dictators in the Middle-East and the Colombian FARC. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) decided to catch him through a sting operation in which DEA officers posed as FARC fighters and discussed with him a multimillion-dollar weapons transaction supposedly in order to aid the FARC in its fight against the Colombian government and the United States. The operation succeeded and Bout was caught by police forces in Thailand.

The US charged him with conspiracy to kill US nationals and officials and with conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation (the FARC). Initially, Bout managed to have the Thai Criminal Court prohibit his extradition due to it being politically motivated. However, in appeals the decision was overturned and Bout was extradited to the US in 2010. A US jury found him guilty on all charges in 2011 and on 5 April 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment - the minimum sentence, since the judge had found "no reason to believe Bout would ever have committed the charged crimes".