Potential Sources of Law for a Duty to Apprehend Core Criminals

Chapter 3 analyses whether States acting extraterritorially must ensure the prosecution of persons within their jurisdiction. For this purpose, it is examined whether the duty to cooperate in the ICC Statute and the prosecution obligations arising from international humanitarian and human rights law apply extraterritorially. This analysis results in the following findings: The obligations to investigate in most of the treaties that are analysed in this chapter apply extraterritorially, the strongest cases being the Torture Convention, the Convention against Enforced Disappearance and the grave-breaches-regime of the Geneva Conventions. Such provisions on investigation and prosecution apply extraterritorially when a State exercises effective (overall) control over a territory. The duties deriving from such treaties are obligations of conduct that require States to take all reasonable steps to bring alleged perpetrators to justice, also by surrendering them to the ICC.