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Judgment on Foreign Soldiers' Immunity for War Crimes Committed Abroad (BGH)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2021

Tom Syring
Tom Syring*
Affiliation:
Tom Syring is Chairman of the Human Rights Research League and a Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. He held the 2020 American-Scandinavian Foundation Visiting Lectureship in the Rule of Law and Forced Migration and served as Adjunct Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University, United States.
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Extract

On January 28, 2021, the German Federal Court of Justice, or Bundesgerichtshof (BGH), Germany's highest court of ordinary jurisdiction, delivered its judgment in Case 3 StR 564/19 pertaining to questions of universal jurisdiction over international crimes and the extent to which foreign soldiers would be barred from prosecution in Germany based on claims of (functional) immunity for war crimes committed abroad. The decision strikes at the heart of a debate where such exceptions to immunity (ratione materiae) are yet to be uniformly agreed upon at an international level; it also comes on the verge of a number of related judgments that are pending both in German and other European courts. In the present case, the BGH held that according to the general rules of international law, criminal prosecution in Germany for war crimes committed abroad would not be precluded based on the notion of functional immunity, “when the acts have been committed by a foreign, lower-ranking defendant in the exercise of foreign sovereign activity.” Neither the BGH nor Germany's supreme guardian of the “Basic Law,” the Federal Constitutional Court, or Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG), has previously pronounced itself on questions of functional immunity in criminal proceedings.

Type
International Legal Documents
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , June 2022 , pp. 483 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The American Society of International Law

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Bundesgerichtshof [BHG], Jan. 28, 2021, 3 StR 654/19, ECLI:DE:BGH:2021:280121U3STR564.19.0, https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=en&sid=8c98a8601d12df344bddda113b06a7b3&nr=116372&pos=0&anz=2(only in German) [hereinafter Judgment].

2 Relevant, related cases are currently ongoing—for example, in Sweden before the Stockholm District Court, Case no. B 15255-19 (prosecution of an Iranian citizen for grave war crimes and murder committed in Iran in connection with the mass execution of members of the PMOI (People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran) and other political prisoners in 1988). The trial started on August 10, 2021 and is expected to continue until April 2022, see the media release by the Swedish Prosecution Authority, https://www.aklagare.se/en/media/press-releases/2021/july/prosecution-for-war-crimes-in-iran; and in Germany before the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz (Oberlandesgericht Koblenz – OLG Koblenz), Case no. 1 StE 9/19 (prosecution of the head of a Syrian intelligence unit for crimes against humanity committed in Syria). The trial, which is a sequel to the already decided case against the lower-ranking officer of the same unit who has already been convicted before the same court to four-and-a-half years in prison for crimes against humanity related to his role of aiding and abetting torture (Case no. 1 StE 3/21, Feb. 24, 2021), see the OLG's case summary (in German), https://olgko.justiz.rlp.de/de/startseite/detail/news/News/detail/urteil-gegen-einen-mutmasslichen-mitarbeiter-des-syrischen-geheimdienstes-wegen-beihilfe-zu-einem-ver), started on April 23, 2020 and is expected to last at least until December 2021. See the OLG's media release (in German), https://olgko.justiz.rlp.de/de/startseite/detail/news/News/detail/weitere-verhandlungstermine-staatsschutzverfahren-gegen-einen-mutmasslichen-mitarbeiter-des-syrisch. Prosecutorial efforts in other cases may soon follow suit, including in Germany, France, and Sweden, where investigations into the Syrian government's alleged chemical weapons attacks on townships surrounding Damascus have opened. See Eight Years After Chemical Weapons Attacks at Ghouta, Investigations Have Been Opened in Three European Countries, Open Society Justice Initiative (Aug. 21, 2021), https://www.justiceinitiative.org/newsroom/eight-years-after-chemical-weapons-attacks-at-ghouta-investigations-have-been-opened-in-three-european-countries.

3 As this case has only been published in German, all translations are by the author. As to the Constitution/the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz – GG), Courts Constitution Act (Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz – GVG), German Code of Crimes against International Law (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch – VStGB) and other relevant legislative texts, recourse has been taken to the translations provided by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/Teilliste_translations.html.

4 Judgment, supra note 1, Guiding Principles.

5 Id. ¶ 9.

6 Case 8 St 5/19 OLG München (July 26, 2019) (in German only), https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/Y-300-Z-BECKRS-B-2019-N-52732?hl=true.

7 Id. ¶¶ 149–153.

8 Cf. § 224(1) no. 4, Penal Code (Strafgesetzbuch – StGB).

9 Cf. § 240, Penal Code.

10 Cf. § 8(1), no. 3, VStGB. Emphasis added.

11 Judgment, supra note 1, ¶ 75.

12 Id. ¶ 77.

13 Cf. § 8(1), VStGB: “Whoever in connection with an international armed conflict or with an armed conflict not of an international character … 9. treats a person who is to be protected under international humanitarian law in a gravely humiliating or degrading manner shall be punished … in the cases referred to under number 9, with imprisonment for not less than one year.”

14 Judgment, supra note 1, ¶ 91.

15 Case 4-3 StE 4/10 – 4-1/15 (OLG Frankfurt) [ECLI:DE:OLGHE:2015:1229.4.3STE4.10.4.1.15.0A] (Dec. 29, 2015), https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/bd14c5/pdf (in German only). See also, e.g., German court hands down life sentence in Rwandan genocide case (DW, Dec. 29, 2015), https://www.dw.com/en/german-court-hands-down-life-sentence-in-rwandan-genocide-case/a-18949176.

16 See, for example, Markus Sehl, Völkerstrafrecht am Ende?, Legal Tribune Online (Jan. 27, 2021), https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/bgh-8st519-voelkerstrafrecht-kriegsverbrechen-bverfg-vorlage-voelkerrecht-gg-folter-afghanistan-grundsatzentscheidung-immunitaet.

17 Judgment, supra note 1, ¶ 45.

18 Id. ¶ 50.

19 Id. ¶ 56.

20 Id. ¶ 37.

21 General Assembly, Official Records, U.N. Doc. A/C.6/72/SR.24, ¶ 86, https://undocs.org/en/A/C.6/72/SR.24.

22 Judgment, supra note 1, ¶ 37. Emphasis added.

23 Id. ¶ 40. Emphasis added.

24 Judgment, supra note 1, ¶¶ 39-40.

25 Id. ¶ 39.

26 Cf. also the cases listed supra, note 2.

27 See Press Release, Swedish Prosecution Authority (July 27, 2021), https://www.aklagare.se/en/media/press-releases/2021/july/prosecution-for-war-crimes-in-iran.

28 See Henry Foy and Andrew England, Swedish trial of alleged Iranian executioner risks straining nuclear talks, Financial Times (Aug. 10, 2021), https://www.ft.com/content/ab516e2c-87e6-46ab-a3ea-ee6ea1849712.