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The ''Völkerstrafgesetzbuch'' (, "Code of Crimes against International Law"), abbreviated ''VStGB'', is a German
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
that regulates crimes against (public) international law. It allows cases to be brought against suspects under international criminal law provisions, meaning that suspects can be prosecuted even though both they and their victims are foreigners and the crime itself took place abroad.Tobias Buck (29 October 2019)
Germany charges two Syrians with crimes against humanity
''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
''.
The VStGB was created to bring the German criminal law into accordance with the
Rome Statute The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998Michael P. Scharf (August 1998)''Results of the ...
of the
International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals f ...
. It was announced on 26 June 2002 and became law 30 June 2002.


Contents

The VStGB covers the following offenses: *
Genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
(§ 6) * Crimes against humanity (§ 7) * War crimes (§§ 8–12) * Wars of agression (§ 13) None of these are subject to a
statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In mo ...
(§ 5). The general principles of criminal law under the (German penal code) remain applicable, unless otherwise provided (§ 2). As a novelty under German criminal law, provisions on superior responsibility are established (§§ 4, 13, 14). Acting upon
superior orders Superior orders, also known as the Nuremberg defense or just following orders, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the military, law enforcement, a firefighting force, or the civilian population, should not be considered ...
may only exculpate a perpetrator of international crimes in exceptional circumstances (§ 3). According to § 1, genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes are subject to
universal jurisdiction Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows states or international organizations to claim criminal jurisdiction over an accused person regardless of where the alleged crime was committed, and regardless of the accused's nationality, ...
, thus German courts can punish offenses committed by foreign citizens abroad. Prosecutorial jurisdiction lies with the Public Prosecutor General. Competent courts at first instance are the (Higher Regional Courts). The prosecution of crimes committed outside German jurisdiction is limited by § 153f of the German Criminal Procedural Code, which gives the Public Prosecutor General a wide discretion of when to open a case via universal jurisdiction, if the offender is not of German nationality. So far the Public Prosecutor General's office has suspended persecator measures for 128 cases brought to its attention involving international crimes pursuant to the German International Criminal Code.


Notable cases

In May 2011, the trial of two
Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equat ...
n citizens, Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni, began before the Higher Regional Court in
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Swa ...
. This was the first trial under the VStGB in Germany. Prosecutors had pushed for a life sentence for Murwanashyaka with no conditional release after 15 years and 12 years in prison for Musoni. In September 2015, the accused were eventually sentenced to 13 and 8 years in prison. In March 2021, the Public Prosecutor General had German police detain a Gambian man suspected of participating in crimes against humanity, including the killing of a journalist, as a driver in the elite guard of former
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Yahya Jammeh Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh (born 25 May 1965) is a Gambian politician and former military officer who was the leader of The Gambia from 1994 to 2017, firstly as chairman of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) from 19 ...
. In May 2021, ten Belarusians asked the Public Prosecutor General to open a criminal investigation against
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (as transliterated from Russian; also transliterated from Belarusian as Alyaksand(a)r Ryhoravich Lukashenka;, ; rus, Александр Григорьевич Лукашенко, Aleksandr Grigoryevich Lukas ...
and security officers for alleged crimes against humanity during a crackdown on protests.


Islamic State

In February 2020, the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt indicted Taha al-Jumailly, an Iraqi national who allegedly left a 5-year-old Yazidi girl he and his wife kept as a slave in Iraq to die of thirst in the heat, on charges of murder, membership of a foreign terrorist organization, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and human trafficking. In what was the first genocide verdict against a member of
Islamic State An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ' ...
, the court found al-Jumailly guilty in 2021 of involvement in the slaughter of more than 3,000 Yazidis and enslavement of 7,000 women and girls by IS jihadists in 2014–15.


Syrian civil war

In 2017, the Higher Regional Court in Stuttgart found a 24-year-old Syrian national guilty under the VStGB of being an accessory to a war crime against the
United Nations Disengagement Observer Force The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) is a United Nations peacekeeping mission tasked with maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Syria in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The mission was established by Unite ...
(UNDOF) that involved kidnapping of Canadian peacekeeper Carl Campeau for ransom, three counts of attempted robbery by blackmail and grievous unlawful detention during the Syrian civil war In April 2020, proceedings were launched at the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz against
Anwar Raslan Anwar Raslan (; born 3 February 1963) is a former Syrian colonel who led a unit of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate. In January 2022, he was convicted of crimes against humanity in a German Higher Regional Court under universal jurisdict ...
and Eyad al-Gharib, two suspected members of
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the S ...
's security services, on charges of crimes against humanity, rape,
aggravated sexual assault The precise definitions of and punishments for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated rape vary from nation to nation and state to state within nations. Effects on victims Aggravated sexual assault can lead to short- or long-term effects. Man ...
and murder, making them the first trial for war crimes by Syrian government agents. Anwar al-Bunni, a Syrian human rights lawyer living in exile in Germany, provided testimony as a witness on "the horrors and the bureaucratic structures of Assad's jails and torture chambers", based on his five years as a prisoner in Syria and from his legal experience in representing victims. Bunni worked with prosecutors to help find witnesses willing to testify in the trial. In a landmark ruling in February 2021, the court sentenced al-Gharib to four-and-a-half years in prison for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity through torture and the deprivation of liberty.Loveday Morris and Sarah Dadouch (24 February 2021)
"German court convicts Syrian ex-intelligence officer in historic torture trial"
 '' Washington Post''.
In January 2022, proceedings were launched at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main against a Syrian doctor, Alaa M., suspected of crimes against humanity, including torturing opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while working as a doctor at a military prison and hospitals in Homs and Damascus in 2011 and 2012.


See also

*
International Criminal Court Act 2001 The International Criminal Court Act 2001 (c.17) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act incorporates into English law and Northern Ireland law the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The principal aims of the ...
*''
Strafgesetzbuch ''Strafgesetzbuch'' (), abbreviated to ''StGB'', is the German penal code. History In Germany the ''Strafgesetzbuch'' goes back to the Penal Code of the German Empire passed in the year 1871 on May 15 in Reichstag which was largely identica ...
''


References


External links


Full text of the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch
(in German, official text)
Full text of the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch
(in English, unofficial translation)

(Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Greek, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish; translated by the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law)
Section 153f of the German Criminal Procedural Code
(in English)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Volkerstrafgesetzbuch Germany German criminal law International criminal law International Criminal Court 2002 in law 2002 in Germany Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court fr:Compétence de juridiction universelle#En Allemagne