Syrian War Crimes Trials in The Netherlands: Claiming Universal Jurisdiction Over Terrorist Offences and the War Crime of Outrages Upon Personal Dignity of the Dead

This chapter examines two cases against Syrian asylum seekers—the Ahmad al.-Y Judgment of 21 April 2021 and the Ahmad al-Khedr Judgment of 16 July 2021—in which the District Court of the Hague asserted universal jurisdiction to convict the accused of terrorist offences and war crimes committed in the Syrian conflict. The Court made remarkable findings on questions that concern the fields of international jurisdictional and humanitarian law. Specifically, it relied on the aut dedere aut judicare obligation under the UN Terrorist Bombings Convention, to which Syria is notably not a State Party,... Mehr ...