The German Government is planning to change the procedural and substantive legal framework on international criminal law in Germany, with an expert hearing having taken placed on 31 January 2024 before the German Parliament’s (Deutscher Bundestag) Legal Affairs Committee. One aspect appears to have been totally neglected by the current draft proposal: the issue of functional immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction in case of core crime charges. In this post, I highlight an ambiguity regarding the personal scope of functional immunity arising from German case law which the German Government and Parliament should take the opportunity to clarify with the current reform proposal. This is particularly important given that the ambiguity appears to have traveled to other jurisdictions as illustrated by the case of Ziada v. Netherlands.
Two University of Amsterdam researchers have meticulously documented one of Syria’s worst atrocities: The mass execution in 2013 of scores of men, women and children in the Tadhamun neighborhood just a short distance away from Damascus city center. The recently published documentation provides compelling evidence of a war crime. Professor Ugur Umit Ungor and Annsar Shahhoud,
The legal principle of universal jurisdiction is increasingly being used to bring accountability for atrocity crimes across the world. An overview of recent developments sheds light on certain patterns that may have begun to emerge.