Universal jurisdiction
While universal jurisdiction has been championed by organizations such as Amnesty International for ensuring that perpetrators of grave crimes find no refuge, it remains controversial.
Critics, like former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, argue that it undermines national sovereignty and risks turning judicial proceedings into politically motivated trials.
The principle gained prominence following the Nuremberg trials after World War II, which prosecuted Nazi officials for crimes against humanity, even when such acts were legal under German law at the time.
Since then, it has been invoked in various international tribunals and national courts to address impunity for crimes committed in conflict zones or under repressive regimes.
The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) further strengthened this concept, though its use remains contentious, often constrained by political considerations and the practical challenges of enforcing extraterritorial justice.
"[9] Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, argues that universal jurisdiction allowed Israel to try Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.
[10] Amongst the vast spread of literature surrounding the theory, application, and history of Universal Jurisdiction, there are two approaches: the "global enforcer" and the "no safe haven".
It convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić on 10 charges relating to directing murders, purges and other abuses against civilians, including genocide in connection with the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica; he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
More recently, the Center for Constitutional Rights tried first in Switzerland and then in Canada to prosecute former U.S. President George W. Bush on behalf of persons tortured in US detention camps, invoking the universal jurisdiction doctrine.
[18] The center has filed a grievance with the United Nations for Canada's failure to invoke universal jurisdiction to enforce the Convention Against Torture, a petition on which action is pending.
On 14 February 2025, a court in Argentina, acting on a petition from the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK and citing universal jurisdiction, issued arrest warrants against several officials in Myanmar, including junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, former president Htin Kyaw, and former state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on charges of "genocide and crimes against humanity" against the Rohingyas.
These included those concerning the Rwandan genocide, and complaints filed against the Chadian ex-President Hissène Habré (dubbed the "African Pinochet").
Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia law professor, has argued that these laws go further than the Rome Statute, providing Canadian courts with jurisdiction over acts pre-dating the ICC and occurring in territories outside of ICC member-states; "as a result, anyone who is present in Canada and alleged to have committed genocide, torture ... anywhere, at any time, can be prosecuted [in Canada]".
[44] The moral philosopher Peter Singer, along with Kenneth Roth,[10] has cited Israel's prosecution of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 as an assertion of universal jurisdiction.
[46] In November 2011, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC), created in 2007 by former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad as a private institution (without the support of any government),[47] exercised what it viewed as universal jurisdiction to try and convict in absentia former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the invasion of Iraq.
[48][49] In May 2012, the tribunal again under what it saw as universal jurisdiction took testimony from victims of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and convicted in absentia former President Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Deputy Assistant Attorneys General John Yoo and Jay Bybee, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former counselors David Addington and William Haynes II for conspiracy to commit war crimes.
[55] In 1999, Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú brought a case against the Guatemalan military leadership in a Spanish Court.
[56][57] In June 2003, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón jailed Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, a former Argentine naval officer, who was extradited from Mexico to Spain pending his trial on charges of genocide and terrorism relating to the years of Argentina's military dictatorship.
[58][59] On 11 January 2006, the Spanish High Court agreed to investigate a case in which seven former Chinese officials, including the former Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin and former Premier Li Peng were alleged to have participated in a genocide in Tibet.
Dan Halutz and six other senior Israeli political and military officials by pro-Palestinian organizations, who sought to prosecute them in Spain under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
[66] The attack killed the founder and leader of the military wing of the Islamic militant organisation Hamas, Salah Shehade, who Israel said was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths.
[67][68][69][70][71] The Israeli chief of operations and prime minister apologized officially, saying they were unaware, due to faulty intelligence, that civilians were in the house.
On 18 April 2023, the Swiss Attorney General declared that Ousman Sonko, a former Interior Minister of the Gambia, had been charged with crimes against humanity.
He was accused of "having supported, participated in and failed to prevent 'systematic and generalised attacks' as part of a repressive campaign by security forces against Jammeh's opponents".
[79] In January 2022, when filing a criminal case in the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office against Chinese officials for torture, rape, crimes against humanity and genocide against Uyghurs, lawyer Gulden Sonmez stated that Turkish legislation recognises universal jurisdiction for these offences.
This is the case, inter alia, for:[81] In December 2009, Westminster Magistrates' Court issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni in connection with accusations of war crimes in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009).
[83] The warrant was later denounced as "cynical" by the Israeli foreign ministry, while Livni's office said she was "proud of all her decisions in Operation Cast Lead".
[85] Similarly a January visit to Britain by a team of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was cancelled over concerns that arrest warrants would be sought by pro-Palestinian advocates in connection with allegations of war crimes under laws of universal jurisdiction.
In 1985, the Mexican national Humberto Alvarez-Machain allegedly assisted in the torture and murder of a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in Mexico.
In Alvarez-Machain's subsequent criminal trial, he was acquitted; he later lost a lawsuit against the American government on the grounds of wrongful apprehension and imprisonment.
