Litigating Universal Jurisdiction' -- Introduction

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play an important role in the field of international criminal justice. Their influence is evident and multifaceted. Aside from their well known influence on institutional developments, such as the establishment and legal design of the International Criminal Court (ICC), NGOs significantly contributed and still contribute to the progressive development and the universalization of international criminal justice by engaging in a practice that we will refer to as ‘litigating universal jurisdiction’. With this term we denote the strategic use of legal instruments — for example criminal complaints in domestic jurisdictions, amicus curiae briefs, communications to the ICC, applications before international human rights courts, the initiation of complaint proceedings before Committees of the United Nations — in order to promote international criminal justice by drawing attention to impunity in national or international fora and by encouraging litigation in courts or other competent human rights bodies. Important examples of such practice include the well-known ‘Pinochet Saga’, that was initiated by a group of victims, exiles, human rights activists and members of the Spanish Union of Progressive Prosecutors in Spain; the complaints filed in Germany against former United States (US) Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and others for torture and mistreatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo that, however, did not result in criminal investigations; the equally — at least in legal terms — unsuccessful attempts by several NGOs to trigger criminal investigations against former US President George W. Bush in numerous states; the legal actions of victims, human rights activists and NGOs both, in Guatemala and Spain, that eventually led to the trial of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his then chief of military intelligence in Guatemala — the first time a former head of state has been prosecuted for genocide in a national court; more recently, the prosecution and upcoming trial of former Chadian leader Hissène Habré before the newly established Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal after many years of NGO lobbying; or the re-opening of the preliminary examination by the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor for alleged war crimes involving systematic detainee abuse by British military officials in Iraq after a German and a United Kingdom based NGO lodged a communication with the ICC

Complaint · Criminal justice · Economic Justice · Genocide · Human rights · Impunity · International law · Jurisdiction · Political science · Torture · Universal jurisdiction · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Arbitration and Investment Law · International Law and Human Rights · Law

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