The Swiss NGOs that use universal jurisdiction to bring war criminals to justice
Civitas Maxima and TRIAL International have been actively fighting against impunity and using the principle of universal jurisdiction for years to bring justice to victims of international crimes. SWI swissinfo.ch talked to the directors of the two Geneva-based NGOs about their challenging work and motivations.
It’s an ordinary building in the centre of Geneva. There is no name plate, logo or other indication that the headquarters of Civitas Maxima is located on the second floor. But it is here, far from prying eyes, that around fifteen people work for the small NGO, helping victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is where they coordinate the collection of evidence to bring criminals living in Switzerland or elsewhere to trial.
The founder, director and the brains behind the NGO is Alain Werner. He is a Swiss lawyer who trained in Geneva and New York and built his career in the specialist field of international justice. He started in Freetown at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and collaborated in the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Later he was employed in The Hague and in Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, set up to try the leaders of the Cambodian genocide. Finally, he participated in the trial in Dakar of the former President of Chad Hissène Habré.
2023: first conviction on Swiss soil
According to the principle of universal jurisdiction, such serious crimes can be prosecuted anywhere, wherever the suspected criminals are physically present, whatever the distance in space and time from the acts concerned. In June 2023, Switzerland announced its first conviction for crimes against humanity. This was against the Liberian national Alieu Kosiah, former commander of the rebel militia ULIMO (United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy), who was living in Switzerland. He was found guilty of having killed and executed civilians during the armed conflict in Liberia from 1993 to 1995.
The trial represented a historic milestone for Switzerland, and Civitas Maxima played a leading role. “We discovered that the man had fled to Lausanne; we collected the statements of the victims in Liberia and denounced him to the Office of the Attorney General [of Switzerland] on the basis of the evidence,” Werner tells SWI swissinfo.ch.
The Swiss lawyer pays particular attention to what happened in Liberia. For various reasons there has never been an international tribunal there. His hope is that a conviction in Switzerland, which is especially important for the victims, will also have some impact on Liberian society. “In Liberia, there are crimes but there is no justice. We make it possible for the victims to come and give evidence in Europe, and if civil society in Liberia so wishes, we help them to use the legal decisions taken here to obtain justice in their own country,” he explains.
TRIAL International, another Geneva-based NGO, has similar goals. Its work also involves using the legal system and the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute torturers who live in or travel through Switzerland or other countries. The non-profit group was founded in 2002 after the arrest in London of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
“As soon as I qualified as a lawyer, I decided to create an organisation with the aim of replicating the Pinochet precedent in Switzerland. This means using the law to prosecute the worst criminals on the planet,” explains TRIAL International’s director, Philip Grant. It was during that period when the principle of international justice began to take shape.
Both NGOs spend years going through witness statements collected with the help of local partners in other countries. Initially, it was not easy to make Swiss attorneys aware of the fact that certain crimes could also be prosecuted in Switzerland, says Grant. “The judicial setup wasn’t the best and the Swiss authorities prosecuting crimes were not aware of international law’s new instruments, nor did they really grasp the principle of universal jurisdiction,” he says.
Work on the ground and financing
The two NGOs deal with conflict situations all over the world. For TRIAL International, these are mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Bosnia. “That’s where most of the nearly 100 people live who have been sentenced due to our work,” says Grant. But Switzerland is also a country of interest for the NGO. “There is a lot of tourism to Switzerland for business or for luxury or medical reasons, which means many ‘interesting’ characters pass through here,” he says.
Thanks to TRIAL International’s diligent research work and its contacts in other countries, the NGO prepares criminal complaints. Numerous ongoing investigations in Switzerland were launched by the group. These include actions against Rifaat al-Assad, the former vice-president of Syria, and against the former Algerian general Khaled Nezzar, as well as the former interior minister of Gambia, Ousmane Sonko. These two senior officials will face trial in 2024 at the Federal Criminal Court. “Of course, I’m satisfied that the cases are being brought to court, but it’s important to highlight the excessive amount of time required to get to this point,” says Grant.
Civitas Maxima, meanwhile, focuses mainly on Liberia. The NGO has received files concerning Liberia’s civil war from France, Belgium, Finland, the United States and Britain. Other cases concern the Ivory Coast, in particular from the victims of violence after the 2011 elections, and Sierra Leone’s blood diamonds business.
Civitas Maxima has also set up an internal department to teach other organisations about its innovative investigation methods. This has led to collaboration with the Ukrainian organisation Truth Hounds and a subsequent formal accusation made in Switzerland concerning the “ambush” of news photographer Guillaume Briquet during the war in Ukraine.
Civitas Maxima has an annual budget of around CHF2 million, which it receives from private donors, mainly associations and philanthropic foundations. Alain Werner refuses money from government agencies. “It is a philosophical issue. The state is a problem when you are talking about war crimes. It is very often in its name, or in the name of those who are fighting it, that these crimes are committed. We act as a counterweight on the side of the victims,” the lawyer explains.
TRIAL International, for its part, does not refuse public funds. Yet Philip Grant has a critical view of the authorities and the situation in Switzerland from the past twenty years. “It has been a long struggle for twenty years. Switzerland does not stand out when compared to other European countries. Under the former attorney general, Michael Lauber, the fight against international crime was certainly not a priority,” he says.
Prosecutions… and progress
Alain Werner must be considered one of the great human rights defenders of recent times. He stands alongside people like Fritz Bauer, the German prosecutor who initiated the arrest procedure against the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann, Juan Garcès, a Spanish lawyer who worked for years to bring the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to justice, and Reed Brody, an American lawyer who goes by the nickname “dictator hunter” and who helped bring Hissène Habré to trial.
Civitas Maxima continues its work in their footsteps – but not without difficulties. “The former wife of Charles Taylor, imprisoned in Britain after we filed a complaint, was freed without the core issue having been examined. Now she is suing us for damages of several million dollars. She accuses us of being responsible for her imprisonment. This kind of legal action is aimed at preventing us from doing our job,” says Werner.
TRIAL International has to defend itself against legal actions too. An oil company based in Zug in central Switzerland has launched proceedings and has claimed damages worth CHF1.8 million after it was named in a report concerning the controversial smuggling of Libyan oil. The Office of the Attorney General has started criminal procedures relating to this issue against unknown persons suspected of committing war crimes.
Grant says the political and diplomatic aspects of certain cases does play a role “even if I cannot obtain firm proof of it”. Werner agrees: “Considering the number of atrocities committed in the world, many more trials of this kind should take place. For now, things are moving too slowly.”
TRIAL International’s director admits that after a lengthy deadlock the situation in Switzerland seems to be improving after Stephan Blättler was appointed Switzerland’s new attorney general in 2021. “2023 has been a crucial year, with the conviction of Alieu Kosiah and the wrapping up of several important investigations,” says Grant. This trend should continue in 2024. The trial against Gambia’s former interior minister, Ousmane Sonko, accused of crimes against humanity, will start on January 8 at the Federal Criminal Court. The case follows a legal complaint filed by TRIAL International and a legal investigation.
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