Universal Jurisdiction. A Legal Obligation?

Academic Paper from the year 2022 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: A, INES Ruhengeri Institute of Applied Science, language: English, abstract: This article examines whether or not states have a legal obligation to prosecute international crimes committed abroad. In contrast to the mainstream literature, this article argues that there is an insufficient legal basis for affirming that a state has a legal obligation to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and other similar crimes committed abroad. This conclusion is reached through an inquiry into relevance of judicial decisions that have played an important role in the development of the theory of universal jurisdiction. This work demonstrates that rare decisions that held that states have universal jurisdiction over crimes committed in foreign countries were taken arbitrarily and with an insufficient legal basis.