Universal Jurisdiction Cases

The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition · Feb 9, 2022 · 32m

Last month, a court in Germany convicted a senior Assad government official for a crime against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison for activities overseeing detention centers in Syria, where the government interrogated and tortured suspected antigovernment activists. The case was unique, not just for the profile of the defendant, but for the fact that the crime had no nexus to Germany. Instead, it's an example of what scholars call a universal jurisdiction case. In these cases, a country like Germany exercises criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes like war crimes, genocide and…