§ 1. General provisions

Section 2

1. Without prejudice to the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code and the Code of Military Law, Dutch criminal law shall apply to:

(a) anyone who commits any of the crimes defined in this Act outside the Netherlands, if the suspect is present in the Netherlands;

This provision follows the ICC Statute.

The International Crimes Act 2003 provides courts in the Netherlands with jurisdiction over crimes committed abroad by foreigners if the perpetrator is present in the Netherlands, incorporating a narrow form of universal jurisdiction. In the Memorandum accompanying the International Crimes Act 2003, the government of the Netherlands explained that this was due to the fact that current international law does not oblige a State to adopt absolute universal jurisdiction (jurisdiction over any persons located anywhere, for crimes committed on any territory). Furthermore, a Dutch court has ruled in the Bouterse case that absolute universal jurisdiction is unlawful under international law (See In re Bourterse, Dutch Supreme Court, decision of 18 September 2001, cited in Goran Sluiter, "Implementation of the ICC Statute in the Dutch legal order" (2004) 2(1) Journal of International Criminal Justice, 158, at 177). A similar approach has subsequently been taken by the International Court of Justice in the case of Democratic Republic of Congo v. Belgium (Case Concerning the Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of Congo v. Belgium), Judgment, ICJ, 14 February 2002), which had implications for the approach to universal jurisdiction in the Netherlands (Goran Sluiter, "Implementation of the ICC Statute in the Dutch legal order" (2004) 2(1) Journal of International Criminal Justice, 158, at 176-177).