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:
“... the next war will be a war in which people not armies will suffer, and our boasted, hard-earned civilization will do us no good. Cannot the women rise to this great opportunity and work now, and not have the double horror, if another war comes, of losing their loved ones, and knowing that they lifted no finger when they might have worked hard?”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (18841962)
“Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness than others. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (16131680)
“In our day the conventional element in literature is elaborately disguised by a law of copyright pretending that every work of art is an invention distinctive enough to be patented.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)