Adjudication of International Crime in the Netherlands

In: International journal of legal information: IJLI ; the official journal of the International Association of Law Libraries, Band 39, Heft 2, S. 194-209

Abstract

During the Second World War, the government of the Netherlands realized that it had no adequate penalization system in place for wartime offences. Thus, the Criminal Law Wartime Occupation Decree of 22 December 1943 (BBS, Stb. D 61) was enacted to penalize offences committed during wartime. This emergency legislation was recognized as legally valid after the war. It then took until the Wartime Offences Act of 10 July 1952 (effective date 5 August 1952, the "WOS") for wartime offences to be subjected to specific penalties. This was followed by separate statutes penalizing genocide (Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 2 July 1964, effective date 24 October 1970) and torture (Torture Convention Implementation Act of 29 September 1988, effective date 20 January 1989).