Should any court have jurisdiction over offences in other countries?

[Evil Eye]

Following events such as genocidal regimes and atrocities in civil wars, there is often an accountability gap because the people who perpetrated the acts will not be subject to prosecution for them in their own country. Belgium’s 1993 universal jurisdiction law permitted victims to file complaints there for atrocities committed abroad. It was repealed in 2003, apparently at least in part because of U.S. concerns about potential prosecutions of visiting politicians/military chiefs, etc. (witness ex-Chilean leader General Pinochet’s 1998 arrest in England and, on a civil basis, the development of “alien tort” claims even in U.S. courts). The new International Criminal Court at the Hague, and the United States’ very active lobbying against it, has further raised the importance of the issue in public.