This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
In November 1994, a Danish court convicted Refik SariĆ of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions for assault and aggravated assault on detainees in a detention camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Public Prosecutor v. N.N., judgment, Ostre Landsrets (Eastern High Court), 3rd Div., November 25, 1994, aff’d, Public Prosecutor v. T., judgment, Jojesteret (Sup. Ct.), August 15, 1995.
Amnesty International, Universal jurisdiction: The duty of states to enact and implement legislation (2001), AI Index: IOR 53/002-018/2001. This 750-page study, the first global survey since the Harvard Research in International Law (American Journal of International tLaw Supp. 1935, p. 435), has recently been confirmed with regard to war crimes by the International Committee of the Red Cross, J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law (2005).
For an extensive discussion of legal and practical obstacles to the effective exercise of universal jurisdiction and ways to overcome them, see Amnesty International, supra note 2, Chapter Fourteen, (AI Index: IOR 53/017/2001).
REDRESS and FIDH, Legal remedies for victims of “international crimes”: Fostering an EU approach to extraterritorial jurisdiction (2004), at http://redress/reports.html; Interpol, Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity: The Investigation and Prosecution of Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity at http://interpol. int/public/crimesagainsthumanity/default.asp.
Amnesty International, Justice and the rule of law: The role of the United Nations — Statement by Amnesty International (2004), AI Index: IOR 40/014/2004.
Case concerning the Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium), judgment of February 14, 2002, ICJ Reports 2002.
See, for example, D. Akande, American Journal of International Law 2004, p. 407 at pp. 409–410.
See, for example, A. Cassese, Journal of International Criminal Justice 2003, p. 589 at p. 594, claiming, without citing any evidence, that “the presence of the accused on the territory of the prosecuting state is the crucial test for the exercise of universal jurisdiction.”
For example, a UN commission of inquiry asserted, contrary to international law, that universal jurisdiction could not be exercised unless the suspect was present in the forum state and that the forum state must request the state where the crimes occurred and the state of the suspect’s nationality “whether [they are] willing to institute proceedings against that person and hence prepared to request his or her extradition. Only if the State or States in question refuse to seek the extradition, or are patently unable or unwilling to bring the person to justice, may the State on whose territory is present initiate proceedings against him or her.” Report of the Commission on Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General, Geneva, January 25, 2005, para. 614.
For the history of the development and implementation of the desegregation strategy, see R. Kluger, Simple Justice: The history of Brown v. Board of Education, the epochal Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation, and of black America’s century-long struggle for equality under law (1977). For a brief note on Bruce J. Ennis and the American Civil Liberties Union/New York Civil Liberties Union Mental Health Law Project, see New York Civil Liberties Union, Championing Civil Rights and Civil Liberties for Fifty Years (2003), p. 19.
The intention of the drafters of the legislation was to permit the prosecutor to decline to prosecute a case where another national prosecutor was actually doing so in fair proceedings, which are not a sham—not on the basis that it was not demonstrated that the state of the suspect’s nationality or the state where the crime occurred would not do so. See S. Wirth, Journal of International Criminal Justice 2003, p. 151 at pp. 159–160.
Tribunal Supremo, Sala de lo Penal, Sentencia No327/2003, de 25 de Febrero de 2003 (available in English at: http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/guatemala/doc/stsgtm.html).
On 10 February 2005, German Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm dismissed the complaint on the ground that he believed that the US would investigate the allegations and stated that “there are no indications that the authorities and courts of the United States of America are refraining, or would refrain, from penal measures as regards the violations described in the complaint.” On September 13, 2005, the 5th Chamber for Criminal Matters of Stuttgart Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) dismissed the appeal of this decision on the ground the prosecutor has almost complete discretion under Sec. 153f of the Code of Criminal Procedure to dismiss the complaint (Zeitschrift für internationale Strafrechtsdogmatik 2006, pp. 143 et seq., available at http://www.zis-online.com). The texts of both decisions are reproduced with English translations at http://www.ccrny.org. See also the contributions of W. Kaleck and F. Jessberger in this volume.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hall, C.K. (2007). Universal Jurisdiction: Developing and Implementing an Effective Global Strategy. In: Kaleck, W., Ratner, M., Singelnstein, T., Weiss, P. (eds) International Prosecution of Human Rights Crimes. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-46278-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-46278-1_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-36648-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46278-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawLaw and Criminology (R0)