A court in Montreal has just found Désiré Munyaneza guilty of crimes against humanity for his role in the Rwanda Genocide, so further underlining and strengthening the principle of universal jurisdiction. This is 'the legal principle that allows countries to prosecute crimes against humanity that take place outside their borders'.
Writing before the verdict was delivered, Richard Dicker and Jayne Stoyles explain the significance of the trial:
What has not received sufficient attention is the important place in history this trial will claim, both in Canada and internationally - regardless of the verdict.
Every functioning legal system in the world metes out punishment for crimes ranging from trespassing to shoplifting to murder, based on a belief in the importance of justice for the victims, to send a signal that such behaviour will not be tolerated and to deter the commission of future crimes.
Yet individuals who plan and execute campaigns of terror, killing, rape and mutilation of entire populations had in the past all too commonly done so with impunity.
While human-rights treaties were dramatically strengthened after the Second World War, missing were effective means of enforcement. This began to change at the end of the Cold War, when international tribunals were created to hold individuals criminally accountable for back-to-back genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Then came the establishment of the new International Criminal Court in 2002. The court's creation was heralded as a remarkable triumph because it required the government leaders supporting the treaty to agree that they themselves could be subject to criminal prosecution. Canada played a key role in this historic achievement.
The vision has always been that the ICC will handle only a handful of cases at a time against the highest level perpetrators, while serving as a catalyst for war-crimes trials in national courts around the world. Ideally the cases can be tried where the crimes occurred, but when this is not possible, the courts in other countries with the necessary legislation are empowered to take the cases. The law used to charge Mr. Munyaneza was created in 2000 as part of Canada's implementation of the ICC treaty. [My italics.]
As many as 1,500 alleged war criminals and human rights abusers may currently be living in Canada. For the relevance of this to the UK, see the letter to the Times here.