ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the issue of international and extraterritorial criminal prosecution of unconstitutional usurpers of power of government, their accomplices and collaborators, which may include judges of domestic courts, for conducts amounting to crimes of international concern, or ‘international crimes’. The prosecution may be before the International Criminal Court, ad hoc international tribunals or hybrid courts, provided that the crimes are proscribed under the respective statutes of these courts or tribunals which have jurisdiction over the crimes and persons in question. Modes of commission of such crimes, including the doctrine of joint criminal enterprise and the control-over-the-crime approach, are explained and examples of the involvement by the International Criminal Court as well as hybrid courts in post-coup situations are given. In addition, several nation States assert ‘universal jurisdiction’ over international crimes committed by usurpers of power and their henchmen outside the State exercising universal jurisdiction and even though the crimes do not have any effect in that State and neither the perpetrator nor the victim is its national.
