Universal Jurisdiction Cases
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
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 crimes against humanity. A collection of European countries, as well as Argentina, have incorporated provisions like this into their criminal code, and universal jurisdiction cases have served to bring justice for offenses committed in a range of conflicts across the world.
To talk through the most recent developments and the phenomenon of universal jurisdiction cases, Jacob Schulz sat down with Hayley Evans, a research fellow working on Afghanistan projects at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and Rule of Law.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:33.8 | I think that based on the idea that certain crimes are so grave that they affect the |
| 0:38.8 | international community as a whole and therefore cannot go unpunished and that victims and |
| 0:44.8 | communities where these crimes have occurred can be helped. |
| 0:49.4 | They can kind of gain some sort of solace in the fact that justice has been pursued. |
| 0:55.5 | I think for those reasons it still is a project with a lot of merit. |
| 1:00.7 | I'm Jacob Schultz and this is the LawFair podcast February 9th, 2022. |
| 1:08.1 | Last month, a court in Germany convicted a senior Assad government official for a crime |
| 1:12.9 | against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison for activities overseeing detention |
| 1:18.5 | centers in Syria where the government interrogated and tortured suspected anti-government activists. |
| 1:24.9 | The case was unique not just for the profile of the defendant but for the fact that the |
| 1:29.2 | crime had no nexus to Germany. |
| 1:32.3 | Instead it's an example of what scholars call a universal jurisdiction case. |
| 1:36.7 | In these cases a country like Germany exercises criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes |
| 1:42.5 | like war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. |
| 1:46.4 | A collection of European countries as well as Argentina have incorporated provisions like |
| 1:50.1 | this into their criminal code. |
| 1:52.1 | In universal jurisdiction cases have served to bring justice for offenses committed in a |
... |
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