Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL

Complementarity and the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction for
Core International Crimes
instances, prosecutions starting in 1994 in more than a dozen of countries
based on universal jurisdiction for crimes committed since the Second
World War (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark,
Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Senegal, Spain, Sweden
and the United Kingdom) (see section 7.3.2.2. below); and trials in international
criminal courts established since 1993, possibly less that one
tenth of one per cent of the more than several million individuals suspected
of responsibility for such crimes since the 1930s have been investigated
or prosecuted in international or national courts. 31
Long-standing, large-scale impunity exists in all regions of the
world in countries where the crimes were committed other than the ones
mentioned above (despite some efforts in a few of them), including Algeria,
Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burundi, Central African
Republic, Chad, China, Cote d‟Ivoire, Croatia, Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran,
Libya, Mauritania, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Russian
Federation, Senegal, Serbia, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Timor Leste,
Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, or in countries where police or prosecuting
authorities failed over the past decade to exercise universal jurisdiction
in particular cases for wholly inappropriate reasons, including
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Japan,
Netherlands, South Africa, Senegal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the
United States. Although the investigations and prosecutions which have
taken place so far are to be welcomed, and the nature of the discussion of
such crimes has certainly changed in the past decade (see section 7.4.),
surely it would be a mistake to suggest that they have made more than
tiny dent in impunity on a global scale. This is not a counsel of despair,
but simply a sober assessment of the scope of the problem of impunity
which remains to be addressed.
7.3.2. Universal Jurisdiction as Part of the Complementarity System
in Practice
As the discussion above indicates, the impunity gap which exists with
regard to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, not to men-
31 This figure excludes persons subjected to traditional bodies that were alternatives to
competent, independent and impartial courts, such as the more than 100,000 persons
processed in Gacaca proceedings in Rwanda.
FICHL Publication Series No. 7 (2010) – page 216