AUGUST
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El Salvador. After a Spanish judging indicts over a dozen former members of the Salvadoran military for the highly publicized killing of six Jesuit priests along with their housekeeper and her daughter in 1989, nine of the accused (including a former defense minister) turn themselves in and contest extradition to Spain; but the Salvadoran Supreme Court refuses to order their arrest. The Spanish case was originally filed by the California-based Center for Justice and Accountability. In an interesting twist, one of the accused is found living in Everett, Massachusetts. [Read more]
JULY
- Indonesia-Exxon Mobil. A US federal appeals court cleared the way for villagers from Aceh, Indonesia to sue Exxon Mobil for grave human rights abuses committed by members of the Indonesian military, based on the Alien Tort Claims Act that gives U.S. courts universal jurisdiction for human rights abuses anywhere. The case, started a decade ago, holds implications for using universal jurisdiction to prosecute corporations for human rights crimes. [Read more]
- Iraq-UK. The European Court of Human Rights finds in the case of Al-Skeini that the European Convention on Human Rights can apply extra-territorially for serious violations of international humanitarian law, when committed by a member state in a country where it has taken on some governing authority (i.e., the UK in Basra, Iraq).
- Libya-NATO. French and Belgian attorneys file a civil law suit in Brussels against NATO on behalf of a former Libyan general for the killing of his wife and three children in a NATO bombing. [Read more]
Erga Omnes 
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