TheVölkerstrafgesetzbuch (German:[ˈfœlkɐˌʃtʁaːfɡəˌzɛtsbuːx], "Code of Crimes against International Law"), abbreviatedVStGB, is a Germanlaw that regulatescrimes against (public) international law. It allows cases to be brought against suspects under international criminal law provisions, meaning that suspects can be prosecuted even though both they and their victims are foreigners and the crime itself took place abroad.[1]
The VStGB was created to bring the German criminal law in accordance with theRome Statute of theInternational Criminal Court. It was announced on 26 June 2002 and became law 30 June 2002.
The VStGB covers the following offenses:
None of these are subject to astatute of limitations (§ 5). The general principles of criminal law under theStrafgesetzbuch (German penal code) remain applicable, unless otherwise provided (§ 2). As a novelty under German criminal law, provisions onsuperior responsibility are established (§§ 4, 13, 14). Acting uponsuperior orders may only exculpate a perpetrator of international crimes in exceptional circumstances (§ 3).
According to § 1, genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes are subject touniversal jurisdiction, thus German courts can punish offenses committed by foreign citizens abroad. Prosecutorial jurisdiction lies with thePublic Prosecutor General. Competent courts at first instance are theOberlandesgerichte (Higher Regional Courts). The prosecution of crimes committed outside German jurisdiction is limited by § 153f of the German Criminal Procedural Code, which gives the Public Prosecutor General a wide discretion of when to open a case via universal jurisdiction, if the offender is not of German nationality. So far the Public Prosecutor General's office has suspended persecator[clarification needed] measures for 128 cases brought to its attention involving international crimes pursuant to the German International Criminal Code.[citation needed]
In May 2011, the trial of twoRwandan citizens,Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni, began before theHigher Regional Court inStuttgart. This was the first trial under the VStGB in Germany.[2][3] Prosecutors had pushed for a life sentence for Murwanashyaka with no conditional release after 15 years and 12 years in prison for Musoni.[4] In September 2015, the accused were eventually sentenced to 13 and 8 years in prison.[5]
In May 2021, ten Belarusians asked the Public Prosecutor General to open a criminal investigation againstPresidentAlexander Lukashenko and security officers for alleged crimes against humanity during a crackdown on protests.[6][7]
In 2017, the Higher Regional Court in Stuttgart found a 24-year-old Syrian national guilty under the VStGB of being anaccessory to a war crime against theUnited Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) that involved kidnapping of Canadian peacekeeper Carl Campeau for ransom, three counts of attempted robbery by blackmail and grievousunlawful detention during theSyrian civil war[8][9]
In April 2020, proceedings were launched at the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz againstAnwar Raslan andEyad al-Gharib, two suspected members ofPresidentBashar al-Assad's security services, on charges of crimes against humanity, rape,aggravated sexual assault and murder, making them the first trial forwar crimes by Syrian government agents.[1][10][11][12]Anwar al-Bunni, a Syrian human rights lawyer living in exile in Germany, provided testimony as a witness on "the horrors and the bureaucratic structures of Assad's jails and torture chambers", based on his five years as a prisoner in Syria and from his legal experience in representing victims. Bunni worked with prosecutors to help find witnesses willing to testify in the trial.[13] In a landmark ruling in February 2021, the court sentenced al-Gharib to4+1⁄2 years in prison for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity through torture and the deprivation of liberty.[14]
In January 2022, proceedings were launched at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main against a Syrian doctor,Alaa M., suspected ofcrimes against humanity, including torturing opponents of Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad while working as a doctor at a military prison and hospitals inHoms andDamascus in 2011 and 2012.[15] In June 2025, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the court for crimes against humanity on the basis of two deaths and eight cases of severe torture.[16][17]
In February 2020, the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt indicted Taha al-Jumailly, an Iraqi national who allegedly left a 5-year-old Yazidi girl he and his wife kept as a slave in Iraq to die of thirst in the heat, on charges of murder, membership of a foreign terrorist organization, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and human trafficking.[18][19] In what was the first genocide verdict against a member ofIslamic State, the court found al-Jumailly guilty in 2021 of involvement in the slaughter of more than 3,000 Yazidis and enslavement of 7,000 women and girls by IS jihadists in 2014–15.[20]
In 2024, German police arrested an Iraqi couple alleged to be Islamic State members, on suspicion of genocide and crimes against humanity for enslaving two Yazidi girls between 2015 and 2017 in Iraq and Syria.[21]
In March 2021, the Public Prosecutor General had German police detain a Gambian man suspected of participating in crimes against humanity, including the killing of journalistDeyda Hydara, as a driver in the elite guard of formerPresidentYahya Jammeh.[22][23] In 2023, Higher Regional Court in Celle convicted him to life in prison for his role in the murders of at least three of Jammeh's opponents and an attack on a lawyer in 2003.[24]
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