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From 1985 to 1994, Vincent Rutaganira was conseiller communal (councilor)of Mubuga sector in Kibuye prefecture. On 6 May 1996, the Prosecutor of ICTR charged him with seven counts including genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, murder, extermination and other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes.

On 7 December 2004, the Prosecutor and the Accused reached an agreement, pursuant to which the latter pleaded guilty to count 16 of the indictment charging him with extermination by omission as a crime against humanity for the massacres against Tutsi civilians at Mubuga church between 14 and 17 April 1994. The Trial Chamber acquitted the Accused on the other charged for lack of evidence.

The Chamber sentenced Rutaganira to 6 years of imprisonment. It took into consideration several mitigating factors including his voluntary surrender to the Tribunal in March 2002, his guilty plea, his good behaviour while in detention, his advanced age of 60 and his ill health. The Chamber further took into account the Accused’s expression of remorse, the assistance he had provided to some victims in Mubuga sector, as well as the lack of previous criminal record.  

During the Vietnam war, the United States used herbicides (including ‘Agent Orange’) in an effort to deprive the enemy of places to hide in forests and agricultural lands. In the decades after the war, reports on detrimental health effects of Agent Orange started coming out.

In this case, a Vietnamese organisation and several Vietnamese individuals did not sue the United States directly, but claimed that several chemical corporations by manufacturing the herbicides had violated national and international law. The Court rejected their claims based on national law, as under US law product liability against government contractors is barred.

Although the Court held that corporations can be held liable under international law, it also rejected the international law based claims as it did not find any international legal obligation which prohibited the US from using herbicides during the Vietnam war. The Court especially emphasised that the herbicides were not used with the specific intent to harm persons, but to ‘kill plants’. The Court held that since the use of herbicides during the Vietnam war had not been illegal, the manufacturers were not liable. The case was dismissed.

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni national, was arrested in Pakistan together with other Yemeni citizens as part of a dragnet seizure of Yemeni nationals in 2001 and 2002. They were transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) in January 2002. In 2004, the Petitioners filed for writs of habeas corpus (a legal action requiring a court to determine the legality of the detention of an arrested person).

After partially rejecting a motion to dismiss submitted by the government of the United States, the District Court stayed the proceedings in order to give the possibility to the Petitioners to appeal the decision. In the meantime, the Petitioners filed for a preliminary injunction (which is a court order requiring a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts), requiring the US government to provide a 30 days’ notice of any intention to remove the Petitioners from the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba).

The District Court granted the motion, after being satisfied that a four-part test was fulfilled. This test required the Court to balance four relevant factors, namely: (a) the irreparable injury to the Petitioners in the absence of the injunction; (b) the likelihood of success of the habeas corpus motion; (c) the harm to the US government; and (d) the public interest.

The District Court ruled that the US government must give the lawyers of the detainees 30 days’ notice before transferring a detainee from Guantánamo Bay to the custody of foreign governments in order to allow the transfer to be challenged. 

A group of Dutch individuals and organisations filed a claim against the Netherlands asking for the arrest of George W. Bush. The proceedings were filed in advance of Bush’s visit to the Netherlands in his capacity as US President.

The American Service-Members’ Protection Act of 2002 (ASPA) allows the US to invade Dutch territory to liberate American or Israeli military personnel in the event that they are detained by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The petitioners said that such an incursion might result in many casualties and would violate international law. Therefore, they claimed that the ASPA constitutes a threat against the Netherlands, its citizens, and the ICC, and had to be assigned to George W. Bush.

On 5 April 2005, the District Court dismissed the case. The Court held that it cannot hear cases presenting political questions. In addition, the Court held that it could not prosecute George W. Bush because he enjoyed immunity as head of state.

In 1999, intense violence broke out in Indonesian occupied East Timor as a referendum was held in which an overwhelming majority of Timorese voted in favour of the country’s independence. These periods of violence were characterised by acts of murder, persecution, displacement and torture of independence supporters. Much of the violence was carried out by the Indonesian armed and police forces, as well as local militia groups.

On polling day, a schoolhouse was attacked by members of the Indonesian army who proceeded to shoot bullets into the air and stab three persons before leaving with the ballot boxes. The Accused, Domingo de Deus, was a member of the Indonesian armed forces. Although he did not directly commit the stabbing and he was himself unarmed, the Special Panels for Serious Crimes convicted him on two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder as crimes against humanity due to his participation in a joint criminal enterprise to suppress the independence supporters. At sentencing, he was convicted to 2 years’ imprisonment, with the majority of the judges finding that his act of saving his relatives from the polling station merited a reduced sentence.