Universal Jurisdiction
See also: universal jurisdictionCountries have long claimed jurisdiction over nationals of other countries or suits against countries themselves in matters Civil or criminal where those foreign nationals are alleged to have committed crimes against the complaining country's nationals, or have committed crimes in the complaining country.
What made this Belgian law controversial was that it afforded the right to anyone to submit a war crime for prosecution in Belgian courts that occurred anywhere in the world, whether on Belgian territory, and whether a Belgian national was involved as either criminal or victim. This concept called universal jurisdiction, or universal competence, was recently used in Germany to indict high-ranking US officials for their involvement in prisoner abuse in the war on terror under the command responsibility.
Read more about this topic: War Crimes Law (Belgium)
Famous quotes containing the words universal and/or jurisdiction:
“It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age and in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that of gold. After all our discoveries and inventions no man will go by a pile of wood. It is as precious to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman ancestors. If they made their bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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