Belgian Senate Committee Passes International Justice Proposals

On January 22, the Justice Committee of the Belgian Senate passed two important proposals. The first aims at restoring the 1993 universal jurisdiction law to its original scope, while the second aims to adapt the same law to the new International Criminal Court. The Belgian law, which permits prosecutions in Belgium for atrocities committed abroad, had been severely curtailed by recent restrictive judicial decisions. This proposal overrules these negative decisions and clearly reaffirms that the presence of the accused on Belgian territory is NOT a condition for application of the 1993 law, which had been amended in 1999.