Universal Jurisdiction

There are basic standards of justice which merit global application. Certain crimes against humanity offend against basic and universal norms of justice. Therefore, all people have an interest in seeing them upheld and should have the legitimate expectation that this will happen. It is a fallacy to argue that asserting universal rights is a form of cultural imperialism. As long as the universal jurisdiction is focused on serious transgressions that are clear violations of the global judicial code issues of differing cultural practices are irrelevant.
Individuals who have suffered (or their representatives) have a right to some sort of due process of law and remedy for the wrong. It is wrong to deny them that right just because they reside in a country where the act will not be prosecuted. Even more importantly, the global community has a strong interest in deterring future crimes by showing that those who commit atrocities will never be safe from justice and punishment.

The concept received a great deal of prominence with Belgium's 1993 "law of universal jurisdiction", which was amended in 2003 in order to reduce its scope following a case before the International Court of Justice regarding an arrest warrant issued under the law, entitled Case Concerning the Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium). The creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002 reduced the perceived need to create universal jurisdiction laws, although the ICC is not entitled to judge crimes committed before 2002.