Genocide under municipal laws

International Criminal Court (Consequential Amendments) Act 2002

In a Belgium court case lodged on 18 June 2001 by 23 survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres, the prosecution alleged that Ariel Sharon, former Israeli defense minister (and Israel's Prime Minister in 2001–2006), as well as other Israelis committed a number of crimes including genocide,^[4] because "all the constituent elements of the crime of genocide, as defined in the 1948 Convention and as reproduced in article 6 of the ICC Statute and in article 1§1 of the law of 16 June 1993,29 are present".^[5] This allegation was not tested in Belgium court because on 12 February 2003 the Court of Cassation (Belgian Supreme Court) ruled that under international customary law, acting heads of state and government can not become the object of proceedings before criminal tribunals in foreign state (although for the crime of genocide they could be the subject of proceedings of an international tribunal).^[5][6] This ruling was a reiteration of a decision made a year earlier by the International Court of Justice on 14 February 2002.^[7] Following these ruling in June 2003 the Belgian Justice Ministry decided to start a procedure to transfer the case to Israel.^[8]

In a news letter published on 7 August 2006 the Indianist Missionary Council reported that: "In a plenary session, the [Brizillian] Supreme Federal Court (STF) reaffirmed that the crime known as the Haximu Massacre [perpetrated on the Yanomami Indians in 1993]^[10] was a genocide and that the decision of a federal court to sentence miners to 19 years in prison for genocide in connection with other offenses, such as smuggling and illegal mining, is valid. It was a unanimous decision made during the judgment of Extraordinary Appeal (RE) 351487 today, the 3rd, in the morning by justices of the Supreme Court".^[11] Commenting on the case the NGO Survival International said "The UN convention on genocide, ratified by Brazil, states that the killing 'with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group' is genocide. The Supreme Court's ruling is highly significant and sends an important warning to those who continue to commit crimes against indigenous peoples in Brazil."^[10]

The group "Falun Dafa in Europe" on their website report that in 2003 "the Finnish human right lawyer Mr. Erkki Kannsto filed a criminal lawsuit against Luo Gan with the National Criminal Prosecutor Office and the Police Department in Helsinki on September 11 2003, on the charges of "cruel torture" and "genocide." ... The Finnish Office of the Prosecutor General and the Police Department immediately carried out an investigation into the case after accepting the lawsuit".^[15] However, no further action was taken by Finnish authorities before Luo Gan returned to China.^[14]

Novislav Djajić was indicted for participation in genocide, but the Bavarian Higher Regional Court failed to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he had intended to commit genocide. He was found guilty of 14 cases of murder and one case of attempted murder, receiving a sentence of 5 years imprisonment.^[16] At Djajic's appeal on 23 May 1997, the Bavarian Appeals Court found that acts of genocide were committed in June 1992, though confined within the administrative district of Foča.^[17]

The Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) of Düsseldorf, in September 1997, handed down a genocide conviction against Nikola Jorgić, a Bosnian Serb from the Doboj region who was the leader of a paramilitary group located in the Doboj region. He was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment for his involvement in genocidal actions that took place in regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, other than Srebrenica.^[18]

On 29 November 1999, the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) of Düsseldorf condemned Maksim Sokolović to 9 years in prison for aiding and abetting the crime of genocide and for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions".^[19]

On 11 January 2006 it was reported that the Spanish High Court will investigate whether seven former Chinese officials, including the former President of China Jiang Zemin and former Prime Minister Li Peng participated in a genocide in Tibet. This investigation follows a Spanish Constitutional Court (26 September 2005) ruling that Spanish courts could try genocide cases even if they did not involve Spanish nationals.^[24] The court proceedings in the case brought by the Madrid-based Committee to Support Tibet against several former Chinese officials was opened by the Judge on 6 June 2006, and on the same day China denounced the Spanish court's investigation into claims of genocide in Tibet as an interference in its internal affairs and dismissed the allegations as "sheer fabrication".^[25][26]

In 1999, Nobel peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchu brought a case against the military leadership in a Spanish Court. Six officials, among them Efrain Rios Montt and Oscar Humberto Mejia, were formally charged on 7 July 2006 to appear in the Spanish National Court after Spain's Constitutional Court ruled in 2005 that Spanish courts can exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes committed during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996)^[27]