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UPDATE – Since our December publication, an English translation of the judgment of the Swiss Court recognizing the Director of Civitas Maxima as a victim of defamation is now available.
Many have noted that the current President of the U.S. is actively undermining the international legal system that his country once helped to establish. A very clear demonstration of this was the United States’ recent aggression against Venezuela.
On May 27, 2025, the criminal division of the Jura-Bernois Seeland Regional Court in Switzerland found Mr. Alan White, a U.S. national, guilty of acts of defamation committed in July 2021 against the Director of Civitas Maxima.
Universal jurisdiction – the ability for national courts under certain circumstances to prosecute international crimes committed abroad – is frequently praised as offering a “last resort”.
U.S. sanctions against its judges and prosecutors, contempt for its authority: attacks against the International Criminal Court continue relentlessly.
On October 31, the Legal Affairs Committee of the National Council decided to continue its work on the preliminary draft of the federal law on the inclusion of torture in the Swiss Criminal Code, paving the way for its consideration by Parliament.
Although Switzerland helped give birth to several international conventions combating torture, Swiss national legislation does not contain the offence of torture. Attorney Alain Werner calls on the Legal Affairs Committee to remedy this anomaly.
Today, following a closed hearing held on 30th September 2025, the judge of the “Chambre du conseil” in the Ghent Court of First Instance issued a decision formally closing the investigation into Martina Johnson.
Granting Vladimir Putin temporary immunity so that he could come to negotiate is legally possible in Switzerland, but it would undermine our credibility as a reliable partner of international justice, writes Alain Werner.
Laye Sekou Camara, high-ranking member of the LURD has been sentenced to 57 months in prison, 3 years of supervised release and assessed a $400 special fee by the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in the United States.
In recent weeks, mounting pressure on Karim Khan—the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC)—aimed at blocking the issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli officials for crimes committed in Gaza has come to light.
The first challenge arises from the differing definitions of enforced disappearances found in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
