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For this final international law column of 2023, and despite the rising tensions, especially in the Middle East, I wanted to end the year on an optimistic note.

At a time where the conflict in the Middle East is becoming more bloody and intense by the day, the international mechanism that should be the guarantor of global security, the UN, continues to demonstrate its essential role.

These past weeks, there has once again been considerable movement on the front of international justice both in Switzerland and in France.

Saturday T. was charged in France for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity committed during the First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996) where he is believed to have been acting as a commander for the NPFL.

Exactly 30 years ago, in the summer of 1993, a group of rebel soldiers sowed unheard-of terror in the town of Foya, in the small West African country of Liberia, then ravaged by civil war.

The Federal Criminal Court had – in its judgement of July 19, 2022, ordered the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) to issue an international arrest warrant for the former Syrian Vice-President and uncle of Bashar al-Assad, Rifaat al-Assad.

May 26, 2023, will go down as an important date in the history of international criminal law.

He would have exasperated at Syria’s reintegration into the Arab League, or at Russia’s presidency of the Security Council. This legendary activist for international justice and former Nuremberg prosecutor died in April, aged 103. 

Our annual reports have grown at the same pace of the organization: in the past years, our annual reports have become full-fledged publications, showcasing articles and opinion pieces by experts and protagonists in the field of international justice.

Bellinzona, Switzerland – Seven plaintiffs write a page of Swiss and Liberian history as Alieu Kosiah is convicted for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

After the failed prosecutions a few years back against former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, then former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, and former Deputy Prime Minister of the DRC Jean-Pierre Bemba, the ICC was close to becoming irrelevant.

On March 26, 2023, the spokesperson for the OAG of Switzerland confirmed that criminal proceedings were being initiated for the attack against Swiss press reporter Guillaume Briquet by an alleged Russian commando.