War Crimes Law (Belgium) - Universal Jurisdiction

Universal Jurisdiction

Countries have long claimed jurisdiction over nationals of other countries or suits against countries themselves in matters Civil or criminal where those foreign nationals are alleged to have committed crimes against the complaining country's nationals, or have committed crimes in the complaining country.

What made this Belgian law controversial was that it afforded the right to anyone to submit a war crime for prosecution in Belgian courts that occurred anywhere in the world, whether on Belgian territory, and whether a Belgian national was involved as either criminal or victim. This concept called universal jurisdiction, or universal competence, was recently used in Germany to indict high-ranking US officials for their involvement in prisoner abuse in the war on terror under the command responsibility.