The Globe article says:
Belgium's centre-left government, which has a majority in Parliament, agreed to replace the law with one limiting cases to those involving Belgian citizens or residents as victims or suspects.
Belgium is, of course, not the only country to include provisions in its law for prosecuting non-residents and non-citizens for war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide committed outside its borders.
Canada has such provisions in our Criminal Code (an indictable offence is equivalent to a felony):
http://www.canlii.org/ca/sta/c-45.9/whole.htmlOFFENCES OUTSIDE CANADA
Genocide, etc., committed outside Canada
6. (1) Every person who, either before or after the coming into force of this section, commits outside Canada
(a) genocide,
(b) a crime against humanity, or
(c) a war crime,
is guilty of an indictable offence and may be prosecuted for that offence in accordance with section 8.
However, it also provides:
Jurisdiction
8. A person who is alleged to have committed an offence under section 6 or 7 may be prosecuted for that offence if
(a) at the time the offence is alleged to have been committed,
(i) the person was a Canadian citizen or was employed by Canada in a civilian or military capacity,
(ii) the person was a citizen of a state that was engaged in an armed conflict against Canada, or was employed in a civilian or military capacity by such a state,
(iii) the victim of the alleged offence was a Canadian citizen, or
(iv) the victim of the alleged offence was a citizen of a state that was allied with Canada in an armed conflict; or
(b) after the time the offence is alleged to have been committed, the person is present in Canada.
That is, charges may be laid against someone who allegedly committed one of these crimes outside Canada, against someone who was not a Canadian citizen etc., who is present in Canada. That would include any US citizen alleged to have committed one of these crimes who subsequently entered Canada.
However, again, it further provides:
PROCEDURE AND DEFENCES
9. ...
Consent of Attorney General
(3) No proceedings for an offence under any of sections 4 to 7 of this Act, or under section 354 or subsection 462.31(1) of the Criminal Code in relation to property or proceeds obtained or derived directly or indirectly as a result of the commission of an offence under this Act, may be commenced without the personal consent in writing of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General of Canada, and those proceedings may be conducted only by the Attorney General of Canada or counsel acting on their behalf.
Normally, the Attorney General of a province could decide to prosecute, and could intervene to halt a private prosecution; in this case, the federal Attorney General has the only authority to initiate a prosecution.
Both of these provisions provide the kind of safeguards the US is perhaps legitimately entitled to seek:
- no jurisdiction over foreign nationals whose offence was against nationals of a third country unless the alleged offender is present in the country where the prosecution was initiated;
- no prosecution without the consent of the most senior legal official in the country.
Obviously not satisfactory to anyone who prefers that such decisions not be made out of political expediency and suspects that his/her govt. might do just that, but not so narrow as the US is demanding. A compromise in everyone's interests.
The extreme intrusion into Belgian sovereignty that the US is attempting to engage in has to do with the presence of NATO in Belgium, of course, and the fact that US military authorities will obviously be present in Belgium rather frequently. Until we have a world capital not subject to any one country's jurisdiction, them's the breaks.
Representatives of other countries present in NYC at the UN, for example, might have the same concerns. The US itself takes jurisdiction over non-nationals of the US who are accused of committing war crimes against nationals of the US,
outside the US.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2441.htmlSec. 2441. - War crimes
(a) Offense. -
Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances. -
The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
Belgium or someone else might want to object to that.
.
(edit -- I cut & pasted the wrong section re: Attorney General's consent)