1 Section 220 of the German Criminal Code was repealed by the Act. An English translation of the Criminal Code is available at:< http://wings.buffalo.edu/law/bclc/StGBframe.htm>.

2 The Explanatory Memorandum to the Government Draft Code of Crimes Against International Law criticized this as a deficiency worth eliminating. See Explanatory Memorandum at A.IL, available at <http://www.iuscrim.mpg.de/forsch/legaltext/VStGBengl.pdf>(in English).

3 Section 6 extends the application of the substantive law extraterritorially and implicitly also confers jurisdiction upon German Courts. Section 6(1) of the Criminal Code was repealed by the Act.

4 The Federal Supreme Court (“BGH“) found, for example, that the fact that an alleged perpetrator has resided in Germany for more than 20 years and that his wife and daughter were still living there constituted a “legitimizing” link. See BGH, Decision, 30 April 1999 - 3 StR 215/98, available at <http://www.hrr-strafrecht.de/hrr/3/98/3-215-98.php3>.

5 See, for example, BGH, Decision,11 February 1999 — 2 ARs 51/99,available at <http://www.hrr-strafrecht.de/hrr/2/99/a2-5 l-99.php3>. In a 2001 decision, the BGH, however, held that since Germany is obligated to prosecute certain war crimes committed outside Germany by a foreigner under the Geneva Conventions, a prosecution of these crimes on the basis of Section 6(9) does not violate the principle of non-intervention and thus, no “legitimizing” link is necessary in such cases.BGH,Decision,21 February 2001— 3 StR 372/00,availableat <http://www.hrr-strafrecht.de/hrr/3/00/3-372-00.php3>. German scholars criticized the requirement of a “legitimizing” link arguing that it was not implicated by international law. See Kai Ambos ' Steffen Wirth, Genocide and War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia Before German Criminal Courts, in International and National Prosecution of Crimes Under International Law 769, 771-772 (Horst Fischer, Claus Krefi ' Sascha Rolf Liider eds., 2001).

6 The Explanatory Memorandum states that more extensive customary international law standards have been taken from, inter alia, the Additional Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Conventions and the 2nd Protocol of 1999 to the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954. See, Explanatory Memorandum, supra note 2, at A.I.

7 The acts criminalized in Articles 13 and 14 of the CCAIL are not considered to be serious criminal offenses.

8 See Explanatory Memorandum, supra note 2, at B I.

9 Id,

10 See Section 285 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

11 See Explanatory Memorandum, supra note 2, at D.

12 Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (DCR v. Belg.), Feb. 14, 2002, 41 ILM 536. This case was initiated by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (“DCR“) against the Kingdom of Belgium (“Belgium“) in respect to a dispute regarding the arrest warrant issued by Belgium against the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DCR seeking his detention and extradition for alleged violations of international humanitarian law. The DCR argued, inter alia, that the issuance of an arrest warrant against a person who is not in Belgium, and the Belgian law, violated international law. Belgium contended that since there was no prohibitive rule to the contrary, it is free under international law to exercise jurisdiction on the basis of universality even in absentia. The ICJ eventually did not rule on that issue, for the DCR no longer made this claim in its final submission and the ICJ therefore passed immediately to the question of immunity.

13 President Guillaume, for example, came to the conclusion that apart form piracy and situations of subsidiary universal jurisdiction provided for by various conventions under the condition that the perpetrator is present in the prosecuting state, international law does not accept universal jurisdiction and still less universal jurisdiction in absentia. See Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000, supra note 10, at 563. Judges Higgins, Kooijmans and Buergenthal on the contrary expressed in their joint separate opinion their belief that “a State may choose to exercise a universal criminal jurisdiction in absentia” over the most heinous crimes such as piracy, war crimes and a certain spectrum of crimes against humanity. See id. at 586 et seq.

14 Belgium, due to international pressure, is currently reversing its legislative grant of universal jurisdiction. See Belgium's Amendment to the Law of June 15, 1993 (as amended by the Law of February 10, 1999) Concerning the Punishment of Grave Breaches of Humanitarian Law, April 23, 2003, 42 ILM 740 (with an Introductory Note by Stefaan Smis and Kim Van der Borght).

1 In German law the term “serious criminal offence” (“Verbrechen“) is used to denote criminal offences (“Straftaten“) that are punishable with not less than one year of imprisonment. Mitigating (and aggravating) circumstances-as regulated for instance in section 8 subsection (5)are to be disregarded in this respect (section 12 German Criminal Code). As a result, all criminal offences in the present Draft Code are “serious criminal offences” (“Verbrechen“) with the sole exception of the criminal offences in sections 13 and 14 (see the Explanations: B. Article 1, section 1). Please note that the terminological differentiation between “criminal offences” (“Straftaten“) and “serious criminal offences” (“Verbrechen“) is, for technical reasons, not reflected everywhere in this translation.

2 Cf. footnote to section 1.