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The
Völkerstrafgesetzbuch or
VStGB ("international criminal code") is the
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
law that regulates the crimes against public international law. It was created to bring the German criminal law into accordance with the
Rome StatuteThe Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court . It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 13 October 2011, 119 states are party to the statute...
of the
International Criminal CourtThe International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
. It was announced on 26 June 2002 and became law 30 June 2002. It covers the following offenses:
- Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
(§ 6)
- Crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
(§ 7)
- War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s (§§ 8–12)
None of these are subject to a
statute of limitationsA statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
.
According to § 1, genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes are subject to
universal jurisdictionUniversal jurisdiction or universality principle is a principle in public international law whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over persons whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence, or any other...
, thus German courts can punish offenses committed by foreign citizens abroad. However, the prosecution of crimes committed outside German jurisdiction is limited by § 153(f) of the German Criminal Procedural Code, which gives the Federal Prosecutor a wide discretion of when to open a case via universal jurisdiction, if the offender is not of German nationality. So far the Federal Prosecutor's office has suspended persecator measures for 128 cases brought to its attention involving international crimes pursuant to the German International Criminal Code. Of the most prominent cases is the one against former
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Secretary of Defense
Donald RumsfeldDonald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
.
In May 2011, the trial of two
RwandaRwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
n citizens, Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni, began before the
OberlandesgerichtThe Oberlandesgericht is one of the 'ordinary courts' in Germany...
in
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, Germany. This is the first trial under the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch in Germany.
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