Universal jurisdiction
Trying people wherever they are, whatever their nationality
Universal jurisdiction enables national judicial systems to try individuals, regardless of their nationality or the place where the crimes were committed. This justice approach deals with international crimes committed a long time ago, as during the civil wars in Liberia, or when no other jurisdiction, international or national, is able or willing to try them,, as in the case of Syria. As with the trials of Rwandans in several European countries (for genocide), the trial of Gambian Ousman Sonko (accused of crimes against humanity in Switzerland) or of Chadian Hissein Habré, tried and convicted in Senegal (for crimes committed in Chad in the 1980s). Discover universal jurisdiction through the news documented by our experts.
Enforced disappearances and the German contradiction
Last June, Germany was among 83 states supporting the creation of a UN body on missing persons in Syria. And yet it does not itself have the crime of enforced disappearance in its national criminal code, and a fruitless definition of it as an international crime. Now a legal reform is in the making, and […]
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