War Crimes Law (Belgium)
Belgium's War Crimes Law invokes the concept of universal jurisdiction to allow anyone to bring war crime charges in Belgian courts, regardless of where the alleged crimes have taken place.
Note that this is a Belgian law and is different from the International Criminal Court, which is a treaty body to try war crimes, and also different from the International Court of Justice, which is a U.N. body to settle disputes between countries. Both of these bodies reside in nearby The Hague, Netherlands, although some have said that American Servicemen's Protection Act passed by the US was also directed against the War Crimes Law.
Read more about War Crimes Law (Belgium): Background, Universal Jurisdiction, Problems With Implementation of The Law, Most Cases Dropped, Modified Law and Criticism, Court of Arbitration
Famous quotes containing the words war, crimes and/or law:
“Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus, 44:14.
The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.
“O liberty! O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!”
—Madame Roland [Marie-Jeanne Philipo (1754–1793)
“There is a law in each well-ordered nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)