Maandelijks archief: augustus 2021

Germany’s Universal Jurisdiction over War Crimes and the Al-Khatib Trial

Universal jurisdiction is a tool to provide accountability for international crimes, such as war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and torture. As these crimes shock the conscience of mankind, the universality principle allows any state to bring to justice perpetrators of such crimes, regardless of the place where the crimes were committed or the nationality of the presumed offender or victim. While many states formally provide for universal jurisdiction in their criminal codes, they do not often exercise it. And when they do so, they tend to be motivated by national interests rather than international community interests (see Ryngaert 2019, Kontorovich 2019 and Mégret 2015 for scholarly observations).

Lees verder