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Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting

The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting is a Pulitzer Prize awarded for a distinguished example of breaking news, local reporting on news of the moment. It has been awarded since 1953 under several names:

 * From 1953 to 1963: Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, Edition Time
 * From 1964 to 1984: Pulitzer Prize for Local General or Spot News Reporting
 * From 1985 to 1990: Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting
 * From 1991 to 1997: Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting
 * From 1998 to present: Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting

Prior to 1953, a Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting combined both breaking and investigative reporting under one category. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award.

Hitherto confined to local coverage, the Breaking News Reporting category was expanded to encompass state and national reporting in 2017.

List of winners for Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, Edition Time

 * 1953: Editorial Staff of Providence (RI) Journal and Evening Bulletin, "for their spontaneous and cooperative coverage of a bank robbery and police chase leading to the capture of the bandit."
 * 1954: Staff of Vicksburg (MS) Sunday Post-Herald, "for its outstanding coverage of the tornado of December 5, 1953, under extraordinary difficulties."
 * 1955: Caro Brown, Alice (TX) Daily Echo, "for a series of news stories dealing with the successful attack on one-man political rule in neighboring Duval County, written under unusual pressure both of edition time and difficult, even dangerous, circumstances. Mrs. Brown dug into the facts behind the dramatic daily events, as well, and obtained her stories in spite of the bitterest political opposition, showing professional skill and courage."
 * 1956: Lee Hills, Detroit Free Press, ;'for his aggressive, resourceful and comprehensive front page reporting of the United Automobile Workers' negotiations with Ford and General Motors for a guaranteed annual wage."
 * 1957: Staff of Salt Lake Tribune, "for its prompt and efficient coverage of the crash of two air liners over the Grand Canyon, in which 128 persons were killed."
 * 1958: Staff of Fargo (ND) Forum, (ND)"for its swift, vivid and detailed news and picture coverage of a tornado which struck Fargo on June 20."
 * 1959: Mary Lou Werner, The Evening Star, (Washington DC) "for her comprehensive year-long coverage of the integration crisis in Virginia which demonstrated admirable qualities of accuracy, speed and the ability to interpret the news under deadline pressure in the course of a difficult and taxing assignment"
 * 1960: Jack Nelson, The Atlanta Constitution, "for his reporting of abuses at the Milledgeville Central State Mental Hospital."
 * 1961: Sanche De Gramont, (Ted Morgan) of the New York Herald Tribune "for his moving account of the death of Leonard Warren on the Metropolitan Opera stage."
 * 1962: Robert D. Mullins, Deseret News, Salt Lake City, UT, "For his resourceful coverage of a murder and kidnapping at Dead Horse Point, Utah."
 * 1963: Sylvan Fox, Anthony Shannon, William Longgood, New York World-Telegram and Sun "for their reporting of an air crash in Jamaica Bay, killing 95 persons on March 1, 1962."

List of winners for Pulitzer Prize for Local General or Spot News Reporting

 * 1964: Norman C. Miller The Wall Street Journal, "for his comprehensive account of a multi-million dollar vegetable oil swindle in New Jersey."
 * 1965: Melvin H. Ruder Hungry Horse News, a weekly in Columbia Falls, MT, "for his daring and resourceful coverage of a disastrous flood that threatened his community, an individual effort in the finest tradition of spot news reporting."
 * 1966: Staff Los Angeles Times, "for its coverage of the Watts riots."
 * 1967: Robert V. Cox Chambersburg (PA) Public Opinion, "for his vivid deadline reporting of a mountain manhunt that ended with the killing of a deranged sniper who had terrorized the community."
 * 1968: Staff Detroit Free Press, "for its coverage of the Detroit riots of 1967, recognizing both the brilliance of its detailed spot news staff work and its swift and accurate investigation into the underlying causes of the tragedy."
 * 1969: John Fetterman Louisville (TN) Times and Courier-Journal, "for his article, "Pfc. Gibson Comes Home," the story of an American soldier whose body was returned to his native town from Vietnam for burial."
 * 1970: Thomas Fitzpatrick Chicago Sun-Times, "for his article about the violence of youthful radicals in Chicago, 'A Wild Night's Ride With SDS.'"
 * 1971: Staff Akron (OH) Beacon Journal, "for its coverage of the Kent State University tragedy on May 4, 1970."
 * 1972: Richard Cooper and John Machacek Rochester (NY) Times-Union, "for their coverage of the Attica, New York prison riot."
 * 1973: Staff Chicago Tribune, "for uncovering flagrant violations of voting procedures in the primary election of March 21, 1972."
 * 1974: Arthur M. Petacque and Hugh Hough Chicago Sun-Times, "for uncovering new evidence that led to the reopening of efforts to solve the 1966 murder of Valerie Percy."
 * 1975: Staff Xenia (OH) Daily Gazette, "for its coverage, under enormous difficulties, of the tornado that wrecked the city on April 3, 1974."
 * 1976: Gene Miller Miami Herald, "for his persistent and courageous reporting over eight and one-half years that led to the exoneration and release of two men who had twice been tried for murder and wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Florida."
 * 1977: Margo Huston The Milwaukee Journal, "for her reports on the elderly and the process of aging."
 * 1978: Richard Whitt Louisville Courier-Journal, "for his coverage of a fire that took 164 lives at the Beverly Hills Supper Club at Southgate, Ky., and subsequent investigation of the lack of enforcement of state fire codes."
 * 1979: Staff San Diego Evening Tribune, "for its coverage of the collision of a Pacific Southwest air liner with a small plane over its city."
 * 1980: Staff The Philadelphia Inquirer, "for coverage of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island."
 * 1981: Staff Longview (WA) Daily News, "for its coverage of the Mt. St. Helens story, including the photographs by Roger A. Werth."
 * 1982: Staff Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times, "for coverage of the Hyatt Regency Hotel disaster and identification of its causes."
 * 1983: Editorial Staff Fort Wayne (IN) News-Sentinel, "for its courageous and resourceful coverage of a devastating flood in March 1982."
 * 1984: Newsday team of reporters Newsday, Long Island, NY, "for their enterprising and comprehensive coverage of the Baby Jane Doe case and its far-reaching social and political implications."

List of winners for Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting

 * 1985: Thomas Turcol of the Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star, (Norfolk, Va.) "for City Hall coverage which exposed the corruption of a local economic development official."
 * 1986: Edna Buchanan of the Miami Herald, "for her versatile and consistently excellent police beat reporting."
 * 1987: Staff of the Akron Beacon Journal, "for its coverage, under deadline pressure, of the attempted takeover of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. by a European financier."
 * 1988: Staff of the Alabama Journal (Montgomery), "for its compelling investigation of the state's unusually high infant-mortality rate, which prompted legislation to combat the problem."
 * 1988: Staff of Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, "for an investigation that revealed serious flaws in the Massachusetts prison furlough system and led to significant statewide reforms."
 * 1989: Staff of Louisville Courier-Journal, "for its exemplary initial coverage of a bus crash that claimed 27 lives and its subsequent thorough and effective examination of the causes and implications of the tragedy."
 * 1990: Staff of San Jose Mercury News, "for its detailed coverage of the October 17, 1989, Bay Area earthquake and its aftermath."

List of winners for Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting

 * 1991: Staff of the Miami Herald, "for stories profiling a local cult leader, his followers, and their links to several area murders."
 * 1992: Staff of Newsday, "for coverage of a midnight subway derailment in Manhattan that left five passengers dead and more than 200 injured."
 * 1993: Staff of the Los Angeles Times, "for comprehensive, penetrating coverage under deadline pressure of the second, most destructive day of the Los Angeles riots."
 * 1994: Staff of the New York Times, "for its comprehensive coverage of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing."
 * 1995: Staff of the Los Angeles Times, "for its reporting on January 17, 1994, of the chaos and devastation in the aftermath of the 1994 Northridge earthquake."
 * 1996: Robert D. McFadden of New York Times, "for his highly skilled writing and reporting on deadline during the year."
 * 1997: Staff of Newsday, Long Island, NY "for its enterprising coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800 and its aftermath."

List of winners for Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting

 * 1998: The Los Angeles Times staff, "for its coverage of a botched bank robbery, which led to a shootout with the police in North Hollywood."
 * 1999: The Hartford Courant staff, "for its coverage of a shooting spree by a state lottery worker that left five dead."
 * 2000: The Denver Post staff, "for its coverage of the Columbine High School massacre."
 * 2001: The Miami Herald staff, "for its coverage of the seizure of Elián González by federal agents."
 * 2002: The Wall Street Journal staff, "for its coverage of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center."
 * 2003: The Eagle-Tribune staff, "for its stories on the accidental drowning of four boys in the Merrimack River."
 * 2004: Staff of the Los Angeles Times, "for its compelling and comprehensive coverage of the massive wildfires that imperiled a populated region of southern California."
 * 2005: Staff of the Star-Ledger, "for its comprehensive, clear-headed coverage of the resignation of New Jersey's governor after he announced he was gay and confessed to adultery with a male lover."
 * 2006: Staff of the Times-Picayune, "for its courageous and aggressive coverage of Hurricane Katrina, overcoming desperate conditions facing the city and the newspaper."
 * 2007: Staff of The Oregonian, "for its skillful and tenacious coverage of a family missing in the Oregon mountains, telling the tragic story both in print and online."
 * 2008: Staff of The Washington Post, "for its exceptional, multi-faceted coverage of the deadly shooting rampage at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, telling the developing story in print and online."
 * 2009: Staff of The New York Times, "for its swift and sweeping coverage of a prostitution scandal that resulted in the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports."
 * 2010: Staff of The Seattle Times, "for its comprehensive coverage, in print and online, of the shooting deaths of four police officers in a coffee house and the 40-hour manhunt for the suspect."
 * 2011: No award
 * 2012: Staff of The Tuscaloosa News, "for its enterprising coverage of a deadly tornado, using social media as well as traditional reporting to provide real-time updates, help locate missing people and produce in-depth print accounts even after power disruption forced the paper to publish at another plant 50 miles away."
 * 2013: The Denver Post for coverage of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting
 * 2014: The Boston Globe staff "for its exhaustive and empathetic coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the ensuing manhunt that enveloped the city, using photography and a range of digital tools to capture the full impact of the tragedy."
 * 2015: The Seattle Times staff, "for its digital account of a landslide that killed 43 people and the impressive follow-up reporting that explored whether the calamity could have been avoided."
 * 2016: The Los Angeles Times, "For exceptional reporting, including both local and global perspectives, on the shooting in San Bernardino and the terror investigation that followed."
 * 2017: Staff of East Bay Times, Oakland, CA "For relentless coverage of the “Ghost Ship” fire, which killed 36 people at a warehouse party, and for reporting after the tragedy that exposed the city's failure to take actions that might have prevented it."
 * 2018: Staff of The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, CA "for lucid and tenacious coverage of historic wildfires that ravaged the city of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, expertly utilizing an array of tools, including photography, video and social media platforms, to bring clarity to its readers — in real time and in subsequent in-depth reporting."
 * 2019: Staff of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for "immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief."
 * 2020: Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY "for its rapid coverage of hundreds of last-minute pardons by Kentucky’s governor, showing how the process was marked by opacity, racial disparities and violations of legal norms." (Moved by the jury from Local Reporting, where it was originally entered.)
 * 2021: Staff of The Star Tribune newspaper based in Minneapolis for its coverage of the murder of George Floyd and the resulting protests in Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
 * 2022: Staff of the Miami Herald, for reporting on the Surfside condominium collapse.
 * 2023: Staff of the Los Angeles Times, for coverage of the 2022 Los Angeles City Council scandal and its aftermath.
 * 2024: Staff of Lookout Santa Cruz, "for its detailed and nimble community-focused coverage, over a holiday weekend, of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that displaced thousands of California residents and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses."


text:
User:Roadrunner

See zh:User:Roadrunner

User:Roadrunner/OldStuff

I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Blog
I do have a blog online, but I'd like to make it a little difficult to link my Wikipedia identity with my blog identity. E-mail me if you want the name of my blog. It's also not particularly hard to find.

Roadrunner
Beep!!!! Beep!!!!! Zoom!!!!!

Trying to keep from getting eaten by Wile E Coyote......

Pretty easy job really as Wile E's pretty stupid and usually ends up at the bottom of a ravine.

There are real creatures in Arizona called Roadrunners, who presumbably are eaten by coyotes...

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title: User:Roadrunner


text:
Universal jurisdiction

Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows states or international organizations to claim criminal jurisdiction over an accused person regardless of where the alleged crime was committed, and regardless of the accused's nationality, country of residence, or any other relation to the prosecuting entity. Crimes prosecuted under universal jurisdiction are considered crimes against all, too serious to tolerate jurisdictional arbitrage. The concept of universal jurisdiction is therefore closely linked to the idea that some international norms are erga omnes, or owed to the entire world community, as well as to the concept of jus cogens – that certain international law obligations are binding on all states.

According to Amnesty International, a proponent of universal jurisdiction, certain crimes pose so serious a threat to the international community as a whole that states have a logical and moral duty to prosecute an individual responsible; therefore, no place should be a safe haven for those who have committed genocide, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial executions, war crimes, torture, or forced disappearances.

Opponents such as Henry Kissinger, who himself was called to give testimony about the U.S. government's Operation Condor in a Spanish court, argue that universal jurisdiction is a breach of each state's sovereignty: all states being equal in sovereignty, as affirmed by the United Nations Charter, "[w]idespread agreement that human rights violations and crimes against humanity must be prosecuted has hindered active consideration of the proper role of international courts. Universal jurisdiction risks creating universal tyranny – that of judges." According to Kissinger, as a logistical matter, since any number of states could set up such universal jurisdiction tribunals, the process could quickly degenerate into politically driven show trials to attempt to place a quasi-judicial stamp on a state's enemies or opponents.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1674, adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 28 April 2006, "Reaffirm[ed] the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity" and commits the Security Council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict.

History

The Institutes of Justinian, echoing the Commentaries of Gaius, says that "All nations ... are governed partly by their own particular laws, and partly by those laws which are common to all, [those that] natural Reason appoints for all mankind." Expanding on the classical understanding of universal law accessible by reason, in the seventeenth century, the Dutch jurist Grotius laid the foundations for universal jurisdiction in modern international law, promulgating in his De Jure Praedae (Of the Law of Captures) and later Dē jūre bellī ac pācis (Of the Law of War and Peace) the Enlightenment view that there are universal principles of right and wrong.

According to Henry Kissinger, at about the same time, international law came to recognize the analogous concept of hostēs hūmānī generis ("enemies of the human race") applying to pirates or hijackers whose crimes took place outside of nation-state territories, while universal jurisdiction subjecting senior officials or heads of states as criminal subjects was new.

From these premises, representing the Enlightenment belief in trans-territorial, trans-cultural standards of right and wrong, derives universal jurisdiction.

Perhaps the most notable and influential precedent for universal jurisdiction were the mid-20th century Nuremberg Trials. U.S. Justice Robert H. Jackson then chief prosecutor, famously stated that an International Military Tribunal enforcing universal principles of right and wrong could prosecute acts without a particular geographic location, Nazi "crimes against the peace of the world"—even if the acts were perfectly legal at the time in Fascist Germany. Indeed, one charge was Nazi law itself became a crime, law distorted into a bludgeon of oppression. The Nuremberg trials supposed universal standards by which one nation's laws, and acts of its officials, can be judged; an international rule of law unbound by national borders.

On the other hand, even at the time, the Nuremberg trials were criticized as victor's justice, revenge papered over with legal simulacra. US Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone remarked that his colleague Justice Jackson acting as Nuremberg Chief prosecutor was "conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg. I don't mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas."

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, argues that universal jurisdiction allowed Israel to try Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961. Roth also argues that clauses in treaties such as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the United Nations Convention Against Torture of 1984, which requires signatory states to pass municipal laws that are based on the concept of universal jurisdiction, indicate widespread international acceptance of the concept.

Theory of universal jurisdiction application
Amongst the vast spread of literature surrounding the theory, application, and history of Universal Jurisdiction, there are two approaches: the "global enforcer" and the "no safe haven". "Global enforcer" refers to the usage of Universal Jurisdiction as an active way of preventing and punishing international crimes committed anywhere while "no safe haven" takes on a more passive tone, referring to the usage of this principle to ensure that the specific country is not a territorial refuge for any suspects of international crimes.

Universal distinct from extraterritorial jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction differs from a state's prosecuting crimes under its own laws, whether on its own territory (territorial jurisdiction) or abroad (extraterritorial jurisdiction). As an example, the United States asserts jurisdiction over stateless vessels carrying illicit drugs on international waters—but here the US reaches across national borders to enforce its own law, rather than invoking universal jurisdiction and trans-national standards of right and wrong.

States attempting to police acts committed by foreign nationals on foreign territory tends to be more controversial than a state prosecuting its own citizens wherever they may be found. Bases on which a state might exercise jurisdiction in this way include the following:

 * A state can exercise jurisdiction over acts that affect the fundamental interests of the state, such as spying, even if the act was committed by foreign nationals on foreign territory. For example, the Indian Information Technology Act 2000 largely supports the extraterritoriality of the said Act. The law states that a contravention of the Act that affects any computer or computer network situated in India will be punishable by India irrespective of the culprit's location and nationality.
 * A state may try its own nationals for crimes committed abroad. France and some other nations will refuse to extradite their own citizens as a matter of law, but will instead try them on their own territory for crimes committed abroad.
 * More controversial is the exercise of jurisdiction where the victim of the crime is a national of the state exercising jurisdiction. In the past some states have claimed this jurisdiction (e.g., Mexico, Cutting Case (1887)), while others have been strongly opposed to it (e.g., the United States, except in cases in which an American citizen is a victim: US v Yunis (1988)). In more recent years, however, a broad global consensus has emerged in permitting its use in the case of torture, "forced disappearances" or terrorist offences (due in part to it being permitted by the various United Nations conventions on terrorism); but its application in other areas is still highly controversial. For example, former dictator of Chile Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998, on Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon's demand, on charges of human rights abuses, not on the grounds of universal jurisdiction but rather on the grounds that some of the victims of the abuses committed in Chile were Spanish citizens. Spain then sought his extradition from Britain, again, not on the grounds of universal jurisdiction, but by invoking the law of the European Union regarding extradition; and he was finally released on grounds of health. Argentinian Alfredo Astiz's sentence is part of this juridical frame.

International tribunals invoking universal jurisdiction
[[File:ICC member states.svg|thumb|States parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

{{legend|#00aa00|Parties}} {{legend|purple|Parties who have subsequently withdrawn}} {{legend|#eeee00|Unratified signatories}} {{legend|orange|Signatories who have subsequently withdrawn}} {{legend|#ff1111|UN member states and observers that have neither signed nor acceded to the Statute}} ]] Established in The Hague in 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is an international tribunal of general jurisdiction (defined by treaty) to prosecute state-members' citizens for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, as specified by several international agreements, most prominently the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court signed in 1998. A serious international crime is outlined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal court as a serious criminal act committed as part of a "widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack", including murder, rape, slavery, persecution, extermination, and torture. Universal jurisdiction over the crimes enumerated in the Rome Statute was rejected by the signing parties, however universal jurisdiction is what allows the United Nations Security Council to refer specific situations to the ICC. This has only happened with Darfur (2005) and Libya (2011).

In addition the United Nations has set up geographically specific courts to investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity under a theory of universal jurisdiction, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1994), and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1993).

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia investigates war crimes that took place in the Balkans in the 1990s. It convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić on 10 charges relating to directing murders, purges and other abuses against civilians, including genocide in connection with the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica; he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Particular states invoking universal jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction may be asserted by a particular nation as well as by an international tribunal. The result is the same: individuals become answerable for crimes defined and prosecuted regardless of where they live, or where the conduct occurred; crimes said to be so grievous as to be universally condemned.

Amnesty International argues that since the end of the Second World War over fifteen states have conducted investigations, commenced prosecutions and completed trials based on universal jurisdiction for the crimes or arrested people with a view to extraditing the persons to a state seeking to prosecute them. These states include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Amnesty writes: "All states parties to the Convention against Torture and the Inter-American Convention are obliged whenever a person suspected of torture is found in their territory to submit the case to their prosecuting authorities for the purposes of prosecution, or to extradite that person. In addition, it is now widely recognized that states, even those that are not states parties to these treaties, may exercise universal jurisdiction over torture under customary international law."

Examples of particular states invoking universal jurisdiction are Israel's prosecution of Eichmann in 1961 (see below) and Spain's prosecution of South American dictators and torturers (see  below). More recently, the Center for Constitutional Rights tried first in Switzerland and then in Canada to prosecute former U.S. President George W. Bush on behalf of persons tortured in US detention camps, invoking the universal jurisdiction doctrine. Bush cancelled his trip to Switzerland after news of the planned prosecution came to light. Bush has traveled to Canada but the Canadian government shut down the prosecution in advance of his arrest. The center has filed a grievance with the United Nations for Canada's failure to invoke universal jurisdiction to enforce the Convention Against Torture, a petition on which action is pending.

Immunity for state officials
On 14 February 2002, the International Court of Justice in the ICJ Arrest Warrant Case concluded that state officials may have immunity under international law while serving in office. The court stated that immunity was not granted to state officials for their own benefit, but instead to ensure the effective performance of their functions on behalf of their respective states. The court also stated that when abroad, state officials may enjoy immunity from arrest in another state on criminal charges, including charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity. But the ICJ qualified its conclusions, saying that state officers "may be subject to criminal proceedings before certain international criminal courts, where they have jurisdiction. Examples include the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ..., and the future International Criminal Court."

In 2003, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was served with an arrest warrant by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) that was set up under the auspices of a treaty that binds only the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone. Taylor contested the Special Court's jurisdiction, claiming immunity, but the Special Court for Sierra Leone concluded in 2004 that "the sovereign equality of states does not prevent a head of state from being prosecuted before an international criminal tribunal or court". The Special Court convicted Taylor in 2012 and sentenced him to fifty years' imprisonment, making him the first head of state since the Nuremberg trials after World War II to be tried and convicted by an international court. In sum, the question whether a former head of state might have immunity depends on which international court or tribunal endeavors to try him, how the court is constituted, and how it interprets its own mandate.

Australia
The High Court of Australia confirmed the authority of the Australian Parliament, under the Australian Constitution, to exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes in the Polyukhovich v Commonwealth case of 1991.

Belgium
In 1993, Belgium's Parliament passed a "law of universal jurisdiction" (sometimes referred to as "Belgium's genocide law"), allowing it to judge people accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. In 2001, four Rwandan citizens were convicted and given sentences from 12 to 20 years' imprisonment for their involvement in 1994 Rwandan genocide. There was a rapid succession of cases:
 * Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was accused of involvement in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, conducted by a Christian militia;
 * Israelis filed a case against Yasser Arafat on grounds of responsibility for terrorist activity;
 * In 2003, Iraqi victims of a 1991 Baghdad bombing pressed charges against George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney.

Confronted with this sharp increase in cases, Belgium established the condition that the accused person must be Belgian or present in Belgium. An arrest warrant issued in 2000 under this law, against the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi, was challenged before the International Court of Justice in the case entitled ICJ Arrest Warrant Case. The ICJ's decision issued on 14 February 2002 found that it did not have jurisdiction to consider the question of universal jurisdiction, instead deciding the question on the basis of immunity of high-ranking state officials. However, the matter was addressed in separate and dissenting opinions, such as that of President Guillaume who concluded that universal jurisdiction exists only in relation to piracy; and the dissenting opinion of Judge Oda who recognised piracy, hijacking, terrorism and genocide as crimes subject to universal jurisdiction.

On 1 August 2003, Belgium repealed the law on universal jurisdiction, and introduced a new law on extraterritorial jurisdiction similar to or more restrictive than that of most other European countries. However, some cases that had already started continued. These included those concerning the Rwandan genocide, and complaints filed against the Chadian ex-President Hissène Habré (dubbed the "African Pinochet"). In September 2005, Habré was indicted for crimes against humanity, torture, war crimes and other human rights violations by a Belgian court. Arrested in Senegal following requests from Senegalese courts, he was tried and convicted for war crimes by the Special Tribunal in Senegal in 2016 and sentenced to life in prison.

Canada
To implement the Rome Statute, Canada passed the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia law professor, has argued that these laws go further than the Rome Statute, providing Canadian courts with jurisdiction over acts pre-dating the ICC and occurring in territories outside of ICC member-states; "as a result, anyone who is present in Canada and alleged to have committed genocide, torture ... anywhere, at any time, can be prosecuted [in Canada]".

Finland
François Bazaramba was sentenced to life imprisonment in Finland in 2010 for participation in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

In 2021 a trial for Gibril Massaquoi, charged with murder, aggravated war crimes and aggravated crimes against humanity in Liberia, started in Finland, with part of the hearings of witnesses to take place in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

France
The article 689 of the code de procédure pénale states the infractions that can be judged in France when they were committed outside French territory either by French citizens or foreigners. The following infractions may be prosecuted:
 * Torture
 * Terrorism
 * Nuclear smuggling
 * Naval piracy
 * Airplane hijacking

In February 2019, Abdulhamid Chaban, a former soldier of the Syrian Army was arrested and indicted for complicity in crimes against humanity during the Syrian civil war, whereas Majdi Nema, a former spokesperson for Jaysh al-Islam, was arrested and indicted for war crimes and torture, respectively. In May 2023, the French Court of Cassation ruled that French universal jurisdiction allows for a trial of said individuals, and that it was not obligatory that "the offences of crime against humanity or war crime be identically described by the laws of the foreign country", in this case Syria.

On 15 November 2023, France issued international arrest warrants for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and three other Syrian officials for war crimes perpetrated during the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack and the 2018 Douma chemical attack.

On 21 May 2024, a Paris Criminal Court started a trial in absentia of Ali Mamlouk, former head of the National Security Bureau, Jamil Hassan, former director of the Air Force intelligence service, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, former head of investigations for the service, for the deaths of two French-Syrian citizens during the Syrian civil war.

Germany
Under the German legal system, international crimes are offenses that require public prosecution (Offizialdelikte) and are not dependent on the victims' individual criminal complaints to initiate the prosecution.

Nikola Jorgić on 26 September 1997 was convicted of genocide in Germany and sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment for his involvement in the Bosnian genocide. His appeal following his conviction was rejected by the German Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest court of appeal for criminal matters, on 30 April 1999. The court stated that genocide is a crime which all nations must prosecute.

Since then Germany has implemented the principle of universal jurisdiction for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes into its criminal law through the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch or VStGB ("international criminal code", literally "book of the criminal law of peoples"), which implemented the treaty creating the International Criminal Court into domestic law. The law was passed in 2002 and up to 2014. It has been used once, in the trial of Rwandan rebel leader Ignace Murwanashyaka. In 2015 he was found guilty and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Furthermore, section 7(2) of German Criminal Code Strafgesetzbuch (stGB) establishes the principle of aut dedere aut judicare, stating that German criminal law applies to offenses committed abroad by foreign nationals who currently reside in Germany if there is no criminal law jurisdiction in the foreign country or when no extradition request was made.

Israel
The moral philosopher Peter Singer, along with Kenneth Roth, has cited Israel's prosecution of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 as an assertion of universal jurisdiction. He claims that while Israel did invoke a statute specific to Nazi crimes against Jews, its Supreme Court claimed universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity.

Eichmann's defense lawyer argued that Israel did not have jurisdiction on account of Israel not having come into existence until 1948. The Genocide Convention also did not come into effect until 1951, and the Genocide Convention does not automatically provide for universal jurisdiction. It is also argued that Israeli agents obtained Eichmann illegally, violating international law when they seized and kidnapped Eichmann, and brought him to Israel to stand trial. The Argentinian government settled the dispute diplomatically with Israel.

Israel argued universal jurisdiction based on the "universal character of the crimes in question" and that the crimes committed by Eichmann were not only in violation of Israel law, but were considered "grave offenses against the law of nations itself". It also asserted that the crime of genocide is covered under international customary law. As a supplemental form of jurisdiction, a further argument is made on the basis of protective jurisdiction. Protective jurisdiction is a principle that "provides that states may exercise jurisdiction over aliens who have committed an act abroad which is deemed prejudicial to the security of the particular state concerned".

Malaysia
In November 2011, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC), created in 2007 by former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad as a private institution (without the support of any government), exercised what it viewed as universal jurisdiction to try and convict in absentia former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the invasion of Iraq. In May 2012, the tribunal again under what it saw as universal jurisdiction took testimony from victims of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and convicted in absentia former President Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Deputy Assistant Attorneys General John Yoo and Jay Bybee, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former counselors David Addington and William Haynes II for conspiracy to commit war crimes. The tribunal referred its findings to the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The Malaysian human rights group SUARAM expressed concern about the KLWCC's procedures, and former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Param Cumaraswamy, described the KLWCC as having no legal basis, and was sceptical about fair trials taking place in absentia.

Netherlands
In January 2024, Mustafa A., a member of Liwa al-Quds, was convicted in the Netherlands for war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out during the Syrian civil war while fighting on the side of Syrian government forces. He was sentenced to twelve years of imprisonment.

Senegal
A case against the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, started in 2015 in Senegal.

Spain
Spanish law recognizes the principle of universal jurisdiction. Article 23.4 of the Judicial Power Organization Act (LOPJ), enacted on 1 July 1985, establishes that Spanish courts have jurisdiction over crimes committed by Spaniards or foreign citizens outside Spain when such crimes can be described according to Spanish criminal law as genocide, terrorism, or some other, as well as any other crime that, according to international treaties or conventions, must be prosecuted in Spain. On 25 July 2009, the Spanish Congress passed a law that limits the competence of the Audiencia Nacional under Article 23.4 to cases in which Spaniards are victims, there is a relevant link to Spain, or the alleged perpetrators are in Spain. The law still has to pass the Senate, the high chamber, but passage is expected because it is supported by both major parties.

In 1999, Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú brought a case against the Guatemalan military leadership in a Spanish Court. Six officials, among them Efraín Ríos Montt and Óscar Humberto Mejía, were formally charged on 7 July 2006 to appear in the Spanish National Court after Spain's Constitutional Court ruled in September 2005, the Spanish Constitutional Court declaration that the "principle of universal jurisdiction prevails over the existence of national interests", following the Menchu suit brought against the officials for atrocities committed in the Guatemalan Civil War.

In June 2003, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón jailed Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, a former Argentine naval officer, who was extradited from Mexico to Spain pending his trial on charges of genocide and terrorism relating to the years of Argentina's military dictatorship.

On 11 January 2006, the Spanish High Court agreed to investigate a case in which seven former Chinese officials, including the former Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin and former Premier Li Peng were alleged to have participated in a genocide in Tibet. This investigation follows a Spanish Constitutional Court (26 September 2005) ruling that Spanish courts could try genocide cases even if they did not involve Spanish nationals. China denounced the investigation as an interference in its internal affairs and dismissed the allegations as "sheer fabrication". The case was shelved in 2010, because of a law passed in 2009 that restricted High Court investigations to those "involving Spanish victims, suspects who are in Spain, or some other obvious link with Spain".

Complaints were lodged against former Israeli Defense Forces chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Dan Halutz and six other senior Israeli political and military officials by pro-Palestinian organizations, who sought to prosecute them in Spain under the principle of universal jurisdiction. On 29 January 2009, Fernando Andreu, a judge of the Audiencia Nacional, opened preliminary investigations into claims that a targeted killing attack in Gaza in 2002 warranted the prosecution of Halutz, the former Israeli defence minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the former defence chief-of-staff Moshe Ya'alon, and four others, for crimes against humanity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly criticized the decision, and Israeli officials refused to provide information requested by the Spanish court. The attack killed the founder and leader of the military wing of the Islamic militant organisation Hamas, Salah Shehade, who Israel said was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths. The attack also killed 14 others (including his wife and 9 children). It had targeted the building where Shahade hid in Gaza City. It also wounded some 150 Palestinians, according to the complaint (or 50, according to other reports). The Israeli chief of operations and prime minister apologized officially, saying they were unaware, due to faulty intelligence, that civilians were in the house. The investigation in the case was halted on 30 June 2009 by a decision of a panel of 18 judges of the Audiencia Nacional. The Spanish Court of Appeals rejected the lower court's decision, and on appeal in April 2010 the Supreme Court of Spain upheld the Court of Appeals decision against conducting an official inquiry into the IDF's targeted killing of Shehadeh.

Sweden
Universal jurisdiction was used in Sweden for the trial of Hamid Nouri for involvement in the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners. In 2022, Nouri was sentenced to a life in prison.

In April 2024, a Swedish court started a trial of Syrian Brigadier general Mohammed Hamo for indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Homs during the Syrian civil war.

Switzerland
On 18 June 2021, former ULIMO commander Alieu Kosiah was sentenced to 20 years in prison for committing war crimes in Liberia during the country's first civil war. This was the first time that a Liberian national was tried for war crimes in relation to the Liberian Civil Wars, and the first time that the Swiss Federal Criminal Court held a war crimes trial.

On 18 April 2023, the Swiss Attorney General declared that Ousman Sonko, a former Interior Minister of the Gambia, had been charged with crimes against humanity. He was accused of "having supported, participated in and failed to prevent 'systematic and generalised attacks' as part of a repressive campaign by security forces against Jammeh's opponents".

Turkey
In January 2022, when filing a criminal case in the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office against Chinese officials for torture, rape, crimes against humanity and genocide against Uyghurs, lawyer Gulden Sonmez stated that Turkish legislation recognises universal jurisdiction for these offences.

United Kingdom
An offence is generally only triable in the jurisdiction where the offence took place, unless a specific statute enables the UK to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction. This is the case, inter alia, for:
 * Torture (s. 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988)
 * Sexual offences against children (s. 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, formerly Sexual Offences Act 1956)
 * Fraud and dishonesty (Criminal Justice Act 1993 Part 1)
 * Terrorism (ss. 59, 62–63 of the Terrorism Act 2000)
 * Bribery (was s. 109 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, now s. 12 of the Bribery Act 2010)
 * Human trafficking and sexual exploitation (s. 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, ss. 52–54 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and several earlier acts)

In December 2009, Westminster Magistrates' Court issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni in connection with accusations of war crimes in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009). The warrant was issued on 12 December and revoked on 14 December 2009 after it was revealed that Livni had not entered British territory. The warrant was later denounced as "cynical" by the Israeli foreign ministry, while Livni's office said she was "proud of all her decisions in Operation Cast Lead". Livni herself called the arrest warrant "an abuse of the British legal system". Similarly a January visit to Britain by a team of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was cancelled over concerns that arrest warrants would be sought by pro-Palestinian advocates in connection with allegations of war crimes under laws of universal jurisdiction.

In January 2013, Nepalese Colonel Kumar Lama was charged in the UK with torture under universal jurisdiction. He was acquitted in September 2016, with the jury finding him not guilty on one count, and failing to reach a verdict on the other.

United States
The United States has no formal statute to authorize it. In some cases, however, the federal government has exercised self-help in the apprehension or killing persons who are suspected of conspiring to commit crimes within the United States from outside of the country or committing crimes against American officials outside of the United States. This has occurred even when the suspect is not a United States person, has never been to the United States, and even when the person has never conspired or assisted in the commission of a crime within the United States, there is a functioning government which could try the person for the crime committed there, and notwithstanding the existence of a proper treaty of extradition between that country and the United States, ignoring the provisions of the treaty and capturing or killing the person directly.

In 1985, the Mexican national Humberto Alvarez-Machain allegedly assisted in the torture and murder of a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in Mexico. Mexico declined to extradite a Mexican national for the alleged crime committed in Mexico, despite having a treaty of extradition. The United States then hired a private citizen and some Mexican nationals as mercenaries to kidnap Alvarez-Machain and take him to the United States for trial. The trial court ruled that his arrest was unlawful because it violated the extradition treaty. On appeal, in United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992), the Supreme Court held that, notwithstanding the existence of an extradition treaty with Mexico, it was still legal for the federal government of the United States to exercise self-help by forcibly abducting him on a street in Mexico and bringing him to the United States to stand trial. In Alvarez-Machain's subsequent criminal trial, he was acquitted; he later lost a lawsuit against the American government over his wrongful apprehension and imprisonment.

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Universal jurisdiction investigations of war crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine were started under universal jurisdiction legislation of several individual states. States that started investigations included Germany, Lithuania, Spain and Sweden.

Accessibility of witnesses
One of the major logistical issues a court may run into during an application of universal jurisdiction is the accessibility of witnesses. States do not have the legal authority to summon witnesses who currently reside abroad to appear before their national courts, nor do they always have access to the necessary witnesses or evidence needed to implicate a foreign national of crimes against humanity.

title: Universal jurisdiction


text:
Talk:Human rights

Semi-protected edit request on 1 May 2024 Strongly enough
X Please replace the following section due to bad grammar:

" Including environmental rights In 2021 the United Nations Human Rights Council officially recognized "having a clean, healthy and sustainable environment" as a human right.[38] In April 2024 the European Court of Human Rights ruled, in the first time in history, that Swiss government had violated human rights by not acting strong enough to stop climate change.[39] "

This replacement section has better English grammar:

Including environmental rights In 2021 the United Nations Human Rights Council officially recognized "having a clean, healthy and sustainable environment" as a human right.[38] In April 2024 the European Court of Human Rights ruled, for the first time in history, that the Swiss government had violated human rights by not acting strongly enough to stop climate change.[39] Hexaphenylbenzene (talk) 08:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Jamedeus (talk) 19:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Lede too long?
Complicated topic, but shouldn't the opening paragraph(s) be more concise? Casey (talk) 20:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Human rights


text:
1896 Summer Olympics

The 1896 Summer Olympics (Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 1896), officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad (Αγώνες της 1ης Ολυμπιάδας) and commonly known as Athens 1896 (Αθήνα 1896), was the first international Olympic Games held in modern history. Organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which had been created by French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin, it was held in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896.

Fourteen nations (according to the IOC, though the number is subject to interpretation) and 241 athletes (all males; this number is also disputed) took part in the games. Participants were all European, or living in Europe, with the exception of the United States team. Over 65% of the competing athletes were Greek. Winners were given a silver medal, while runners-up received a copper medal. Retroactively, the IOC has converted these to gold and silver, and awarded bronze medals to third placed athletes. Ten of the 14 participating nations earned medals. The United States won the most gold medals, 11, while host nation Greece won the most medals overall, 47. The highlight for the Greeks was the marathon victory by their compatriot Spyridon Louis. The most successful competitor was German wrestler and gymnast Carl Schuhmann, who won four events.

Athens had been unanimously chosen to stage the inaugural modern Games during a congress organised by Coubertin in Paris on 23 June 1894, during which the IOC was also created, because Greece was the birthplace of the Ancient Olympic Games. The main venue was the Panathenaic Stadium, where athletics and wrestling took place; other venues included the Neo Phaliron Velodrome for cycling, and the Zappeion for fencing. The opening ceremony was held in the Panathenaic Stadium on 6 April, during which most of the competing athletes were aligned on the infield, grouped by nation. After a speech by the president of the organising committee, Crown Prince Constantine, his father officially opened the Games. Afterwards, nine bands and 150 choir singers performed an Olympic Hymn, composed by Spyridon Samaras, with words by poet Kostis Palamas.

The 1896 Olympics were regarded as a great success. The Games had the largest international participation of any sporting event to that date. The Panathenaic Stadium overflowed with the largest crowd ever to watch a sporting event. After the Games, Coubertin and the IOC were petitioned by several prominent figures, including Greece's King George and some of the American competitors in Athens, to hold all the following Games in Athens. However, the 1900 Summer Olympics were already planned for Paris and, with the exception of the Intercalated Games of 1906, the Olympics did not return to Greece until the 2004 Summer Olympics, 108 years later.

Reviving the Games
During the 19th century, several small-scale sports festivals across Europe were named after the Ancient Olympic Games. The 1870 Olympics at the Panathenaic stadium, which had been refurbished for the occasion, had an audience of 30,000 people. Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and historian, adopted William Penny Brookes' idea to establish a multi-national and multi-sport event—the ancient games only allowed male athletes of Greek origin to participate. In 1890, Coubertin wrote an article in La Revue Athletique, which espoused the importance of Much Wenlock, a rural market town in the English county of Shropshire. It was here that, in October 1850, the local physician William Penny Brookes had founded the Wenlock Olympian Games, a festival of sports and recreations that included athletics and team sports, such as cricket, football and quoits. Coubertin also took inspiration from the earlier Greek games organised under the name of Olympics by businessman and philanthropist Evangelis Zappas in 1859, 1870 and 1875. The 1896 Athens Games were funded by the legacies of Evangelis Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas and by George Averoff who had been specifically requested by the Greek government, through crown prince Constantine, to sponsor the second refurbishment of the Panathenaic Stadium. The Greek government did this despite the cost of refurbishing the stadium in marble already being funded in full by Evangelis Zappas forty years earlier.

""

On 18 June 1894, Coubertin organised a congress at the Sorbonne, Paris, to present his plans to representatives of sports societies from 11 countries. Following his proposal's acceptance by the congress, a date for the first modern Olympic Games needed to be chosen. Coubertin suggested that the Games be held concurrently with the 1900 Universal Exposition of Paris. Concerned that a six-year waiting period might lessen public interest, congress members opted instead to hold the inaugural Games in 1896. With a date established, members of the congress turned their attention to the selection of a host city. It remains a mystery how Athens was finally chosen to host the inaugural Games. In the following years both Coubertin and Demetrius Vikelas would offer recollections of the selection process that contradicted the official minutes of the congress. Most accounts hold that several congressmen first proposed London as the location, but Coubertin dissented. After a brief discussion with Vikelas, who represented Greece, Coubertin suggested Athens. Vikelas made the Athens proposal official on 23 June, and since Greece had been the original home of the Olympics, the congress unanimously approved the decision. Vikelas was then elected the first president of the newly established International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Organization
News that the Olympic Games would return to Greece was well received by the Greek public, media, and royal family. According to Coubertin, "the Crown Prince Constantine learned with great pleasure that the Games will be inaugurated in Athens." Coubertin went on to confirm that, "the King and the Crown Prince will confer their patronage on the holding of these games." Constantine later conferred more than that; he eagerly assumed the presidency of the 1896 organising committee.

However, the country had financial troubles and was in political turmoil. The job of prime minister alternated between Charilaos Trikoupis and Theodoros Deligiannis frequently during the last years of the 19th century. Because of this financial and political instability, both prime minister Trikoupis and Stephanos Dragoumis, the president of the Zappas Olympic Committee, which had attempted to organise a series of national Olympiads, believed that Greece could not host the event. In late 1894, the organising committee under Stephanos Skouloudis presented a report that the cost of the Games would be three times higher than originally estimated by Coubertin. They concluded the Games could not be held, and offered their resignation. The total cost of the Games was 3,740,000 gold drachmas.

With the prospect of reviving the Olympic games very much in doubt, Coubertin and Vikelas commenced a campaign to keep the Olympic movement alive. Their efforts culminated on 7 January 1895 when Vikelas announced that crown prince Constantine would assume the presidency of the organising committee. His first responsibility was to raise the funds necessary to host the Games. He relied on the patriotism of the Greek people to motivate them to provide the required finances. Constantine's enthusiasm sparked a wave of contributions from the Greek public. This grassroots effort raised 330,000 drachmas. A special set of postage stamps were commissioned; the sale of which raised 400,000 drachmas. Ticket sales added 200,000 drachmas. At the request of Constantine, businessman George Averoff agreed to pay for the restoration of the Panathenaic Stadium. Averoff would donate 920,000 drachmas to this project. As a tribute to his generosity, a statue of Averoff was constructed and unveiled on 5 April 1896 outside the stadium. It stands there to this day.

Some of the athletes would take part in the Games because they happened to be in Athens at the time the Games were held, either on holiday or for work (e.g., some of the British competitors worked for the British embassy). A designated Olympic Village for the athletes did not appear until the 1932 Summer Olympics. Consequently, the athletes had to provide their own lodging.

The first regulation voted on by the new IOC in 1894 was to allow only amateur athletes to participate in the Olympic Games. The various contests were thus held under amateur regulations with the exception of fencing matches. The rules and regulations were not uniform, so the Organising Committee had to choose among the codes of the various national athletic associations. The jury, the referees and the game director bore the same names as in antiquity (Ephor, Helanodic and Alitarc). Prince George acted as final referee; according to Coubertin, "his presence gave weight and authority to the decisions of the ephors".

Women were not entitled to compete at the 1896 Summer Olympics, because de Coubertin felt that their inclusion would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and incorrect".

Venues

Seven venues were used for the 1896 Summer Olympics. Panathenaic Stadium was the main venue, hosting four of the nine sports contested. The city of Marathon served as host to the marathon event and the individual road race events. Swimming was held in the Bay of Zea, fencing at the Zappeion, sport shooting at Kallithea, and tennis at the Athens Lawn Tennis Club. Tennis was a sport unfamiliar to Greeks at the time of the 1896 Games.

The Bay of Zea is a seaport and marina in the Athens area; it was used as the swimming venue because the organizers of the Games wanted to avoid spending money on constructing a special purpose swimming venue.

Four of the 1896 venues were reused as competition venues for the 2004 Games. The velodrome would be renovated into a football stadium in 1964 and was known as Karaiskakis Stadium. This venue was renovated in 2003 for use as a football venue for the 2004 Games. During the 2004 Games, Panathinaiko Stadium served as host for archery competitions and was the finish line for the athletic marathon event. The city of Marathon itself served as the starting point for both marathon events during the 2004 Games. The Zappeion served as the first home of the organizing committee (ATHOC) for the 2004 Games from 1998 to 1999, and served as the main communications center during those Games.

Calendar

‡ The iconic Olympic rings symbol was not designed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin until 1912.

Note: Silver medals were awarded to the winners with copper medals given to the runners-up and no prizes were given to those who came in 3rd place in any events.

Opening ceremony

On Easter Monday 6 April (25 March according to the Julian calendar then in use in Greece), the games of the First Olympiad were officially opened. The Panathenaic Stadium was filled with an estimated 80,000 spectators, including King George I of Greece, his wife Olga, and their sons. Most of the competing athletes were aligned on the infield, grouped by nation. After a speech by the president of the organising committee, Crown Prince Constantine, his father officially opened the Games with the words (in Greek):

"'I declare the opening of the first international Olympic Games in Athens. Long live the Nation. Long live the Greek people.'"

Afterwards, nine bands and 150 choir singers performed an Olympic Hymn, composed by Spyridon Samaras, with words by poet Kostis Palamas. Thereafter, a variety of musical offerings provided the backgrounds to the Opening Ceremonies until 1960, since which time the Samaras/Palamas composition has become the official Olympic Anthem (decision taken by the IOC Session in 1958). Other elements of current Olympic opening ceremonies were initiated later: the Olympic flame was first lit in 1928, the first athletes' oath was sworn at the 1920 Summer Olympics, and the first officials' oath was taken at the 1972 Olympic Games.

Events
At the 1894 Sorbonne Congress, a large roster of sports were suggested for the program in Athens.

The first official announcements regarding the sporting events to be held featured sports such as football and cricket, but these plans were not finalised, and these sports did not make the final program for the Games. Rowing and sailing events were also scheduled, but were cancelled on the planned days of competition: sailing due to a lack of special boats in Greece and no foreign entries, and rowing due to poor weather.

As a result, the 1896 Summer Olympics programme featured 9 sports encompassing 10 disciplines and 43 events. The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.

•

•

• * Road (1)

• * Track (5)

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Athletics
The athletics events had the most international field of any of the sports. The major highlight was the marathon, held for the first time in international competition. Spyridon Louis, a previously unrecognised water carrier, won the event to become the only Greek athletics champion and a national hero. Although Greece had been favoured to win the discus and the shot put, the best Greek athletes finished just behind the American Robert Garrett in both events.

No world records were set, as few top international competitors had elected to compete. In addition, the curves of the track were very tight, making fast times in the running events virtually impossible. Despite this, Thomas Burke, of the United States, won the 100-meter race in 12.0 seconds and the 400-meter race in 54.2 seconds. Burke was the only one who used the "crouch start" (putting his knee on soil), confusing the jury. Eventually, he was allowed to start from this "uncomfortable position".

Chile claims one athlete, Luis Subercaseaux, who competed for the nation at the 1896 Summer Olympics. This makes Chile one of the 14 nations to appear at the inaugural Summer Olympic Games. Subercaseaux's results are not listed in the official report, though that report typically includes only winners and Subercaseaux won no medals. Some sources claim that he was entered to compete in the 100m, 400m and 800m events but did not start. An appraisal of a famous photo of series 2 of the 100 meters sprint, performed by facial recognition experts of the Chilean forensic police, concluded that Subercaseaux was one of the participants.

The day after the official marathon Stamata Revithi ran the 40-kilometer course in 5 hours 30 minutes, finishing outside Panathinaiko Stadium. However, some of the authors, who believe that "Melpomene" and Revithi are the same person, attribute to the latter the more favorable time of $4 1/2$ hours. She was denied entry into the official race as the 1896 Olympics excluded women from competition.

Cycling
The rules of the International Cycling Association were used for the cycling competitions. The track cycling events were held at the newly built Neo Phaliron Velodrome. Only one road event was held, a race from Athens to Marathon and back (87 kilometres).

In the track events, the best cyclist was Frenchman Paul Masson, who won the one lap time trial, the sprint event, and the 10,000 meters. In the 100 kilometres event, Masson entered as a pacemaker for his compatriot Léon Flameng. Flameng won the event, after a fall, and after stopping to wait for his Greek opponent Georgios Kolettis to fix a mechanical problem. The Austrian fencer Adolf Schmal won the 12-hour race, which was completed by only two cyclists, while the road race event was won by Aristidis Konstantinidis.

Fencing
The fencing events were held in the Zappeion, which, built with money Evangelis Zappas had given to revive the ancient Olympic Games, had never seen any athletic contests before. Unlike other sports (in which only amateurs were allowed to take part at the Olympics), professionals were authorised to compete in fencing, though in a separate event. These professionals were considered gentlemen athletes, just like the amateurs.

Four events were scheduled, but the épée event was cancelled for unknown reasons. The foil event was won by a Frenchman, Eugène-Henri Gravelotte, who beat his countryman, Henri Callot, in the final. The other two events, the sabre and the masters foil, were won by Greek fencers. Leonidas Pyrgos, who won the latter event, became the first Greek Olympic champion in the modern era.

Gymnastics
The gymnastics competition was carried out on the infield of the Panathinaiko Stadium. Germany sent an 11-man team, which won five of the eight events, including both team events: in the team event on the horizontal bar, the German team was the only entry.

Three Germans added individual titles: Hermann Weingärtner won the horizontal bar event, Alfred Flatow won the parallel bars, and Carl Schuhmann, who also won the wrestling event, won the vault. Louis Zutter, a Swiss gymnast, won the pommel horse, while Greeks Ioannis Mitropoulos and Nikolaos Andriakopoulos were victorious in the rings and rope climbing events, respectively.

Sailing and rowing
A regatta of sailing boats was on the program of the Games of the First Olympiad for 31 March 1896 (Julian calendar). However this event had to be given up.

The official English report states:

"The Olympic Games B.C. 776. – A.D. 1896"

The German version states:

""

Rowing races were scheduled for the next day, 1 April 1896 (Julian); however, poor weather forced their cancellation.

The official English report states:

""

The German rower, Berthold Küttner, wrote several articles about the 1896 Games that were published in his Berlin rowing club's magazine in 1936 and reprinted in the Journal of Olympic History in 2012. He stated that he and Adolf Jäger had lined up for the start of the double sculls event. He further wrote that "The double scull would be the first to start because the wind had become much stronger. On a fishing boat we took our double scull to the starting line. We already had problems getting into the double scull because of the swells. From our opponents no one had appeared – although both Greeks and Italians had applied. Because a longer wait for them seemed pointless, the starter told us to sail without competition.

"After the official salutation and presentation in the Court Loge, where many of the attendees could not hide a laugh about my clothing, Prince George, President of the Committee, praised me for our appearance at the racing track and presented me with the winners medal in bronze. At the same time he also gave me one for Bundesbruder Jäger. The commemorative medal, which each of the participants received, had already been presented to us earlier."

He went on to state that the single sculls and race for naval boats were postponed until the following day, then ultimately cancelled when the weather worsened. The International Olympic Committee does not recognize any of this.

Shooting
Held at a range at Kallithea, the shooting competition consisted of five events—two using a rifle and three with the pistol. The first event, the military rifle, was won by Pantelis Karasevdas, the only competitor to hit the target with all of his shots. The second event, for military pistols, was dominated by two American brothers: John and Sumner Paine. They became the first siblings to finish first and second in the same event. To avoid embarrassing their hosts, the brothers decided that only one of them would compete in the next pistol event, the free pistol. Sumner Paine won that event, thereby becoming the first relative of an Olympic champion to become Olympic champion himself.

The Paine brothers did not compete in the 25-meter pistol event, as the event judges determined that their weapons were not of the required calibre. In their absence, Ioannis Phrangoudis won. The final event, the free rifle, began on the same day. However, the event could not be completed due to darkness and was finalised the next morning, when Georgios Orphanidis was crowned the champion.

Swimming

The swimming competition was held in the open sea because the organizers had refused to spend the money necessary for a specially constructed stadium. Nearly 20,000 spectators lined the Bay of Zea off the Piraeus coast to watch the events. The water in the bay was cold, and the competitors suffered during their races. There were three open events (men's 100-metre freestyle, men's 500-metre freestyle, and men's 1200 metre freestyle), in addition to a special event open only to Greek sailors, all of which were held on the same day (11 April).

For Alfréd Hajós of Hungary, this meant he could only compete in two of the events, as they were held too close together, which made it impossible for him to adequately recuperate. Nevertheless, he won the two events in which he swam, the 100 and 1200 meter freestyle. Hajós later became one of only two Olympians to win a medal in both the athletic and artistic competitions, when he won a silver medal for architecture in 1924. The 500-meter freestyle was won by Austrian swimmer Paul Neumann, who defeated his opponents by more than a minute and a half.

Tennis
Although tennis was already a major sport by the end of the 19th century, none of the top players turned up for the tournament in Athens. The competition was held at the courts of the Athens Lawn Tennis Club, and the infield of the velodrome used for the cycling events. John Pius Boland, who won the event, had been entered in the competition by a fellow-student of his at Oxford; the Greek, Konstantinos Manos. As a member of the Athens Lawn Tennis sub-committee, Manos had been trying, with the assistance of Boland, to recruit competitors for the Athens Games from among the sporting circles of Oxford University. In the first round, Boland defeated Friedrich Traun, a promising tennis player from Hamburg, who had been eliminated in the 100-meter sprint competition. Boland and Traun decided to team up for the doubles event, in which they reached the final and defeated their Greek opponents after losing the first set.

Weightlifting

The sport of weightlifting was still young in 1896, and the rules differed from those in use today. Competitions were held outdoors, in the infield of the main stadium, and there were no weight limits. The first event was held in a style now known as the "clean and jerk". Two competitors stood out: Scotsman Launceston Elliot and Viggo Jensen of Denmark. Both of them lifted the same weight; but the jury, with Prince George as the chairman, ruled that Jensen had done so in a better style. The British delegation, unfamiliar with this tie-breaking rule, lodged a protest. The lifters were eventually allowed to make further attempts, but neither lifter improved, and Jensen was declared the champion.

Elliot got his revenge in the one hand lift event, which was held immediately after the two-handed one. Jensen had been slightly injured during his last two-handed attempt, and was no match for Elliot, who won the competition easily. The Greek audience was charmed by the Scottish victor, whom they considered very attractive. A curious incident occurred during the weightlifting event: a servant was ordered to remove the weights, which appeared to be a difficult task for him. Prince George came to his assistance; he picked up the weight and threw it a considerable distance with ease, to the delight of the crowd.

Wrestling

No weight classes existed for the wrestling competition, held in the Panathenaic Stadium, which meant that there would only be one winner among competitors of all sizes. The rules used were similar to modern Greco-Roman wrestling, although there was no time limit, and not all leg holds were forbidden (in contrast to current rules).

Apart from the two Greek contestants, all the competitors had previously been active in other sports. Weightlifting champion Launceston Elliot faced gymnastics champion Carl Schuhmann. The latter won and advanced into the final, where he met Georgios Tsitas, who had previously defeated Stephanos Christopoulos. Darkness forced the final match to be suspended after 40 minutes; it was continued the following day, when Schuhmann needed only fifteen minutes to finish the bout.

Closing ceremony
On the morning of Sunday 12 April (or 31 March, according to the Julian calendar then used in Greece), King George organised a banquet for officials and athletes (even though some competitions had not yet been held). During his speech, he made clear that, as far as he was concerned, the Olympics should be held in Athens permanently. The official closing ceremony was held the following Wednesday, after being postponed from Tuesday due to rain. Again the royal family attended the ceremony, which was opened by the national anthem of Greece and an ode composed in ancient Greek by George S. Robertson, a British athlete and scholar.

Afterwards, the king awarded prizes to the winners. Unlike today, the first-place winners received a silver medal, an olive branch and a diploma, while runners-up received a copper medal, a laurel branch, and diploma. Third place winners did not receive a prize.

Some winners also received additional prizes, such as Spyridon Louis, who received a cup from Michel Bréal, a friend of Coubertin, who had conceived the marathon event. Louis then led the medalists on a lap of honour around the stadium, while the Olympic Hymn was played again. The King then formally announced that the first Olympiad was at an end, and left the Stadium, while the band played the Greek national hymn and the crowd cheered.

Like the Greek king, many others supported the idea of holding the next Games in Athens; most of the American competitors signed a letter to the Crown Prince expressing this wish. Coubertin, however, was heavily opposed to this idea, as he envisioned international rotation as one of the cornerstones of the modern Olympics. According to his wish, the next Games were held in Paris, although they would be somewhat overshadowed by the concurrently held Universal Exposition.

Participating nations

The concept of national teams was not a major part of the Olympic movement until the Intercalated Games 10 years later, though many sources list the nationality of competitors in 1896 and give medal counts. There are significant conflicts with regard to which nations competed. The International Olympic Committee gives a figure of 14, but does not list them. The following 14 are most likely the ones recognised by the IOC. Olympedia lists 13, excluding Chile; other sources list 12, excluding Chile and Bulgaria; others list 13, including those two but excluding Italy. Egypt is also sometimes included because of the participation of Dimitrios Kasdaglis, a Greek national who resided in Alexandria after living in Great Britain for years. Belgium and Russia had entered the names of competitors, but withdrew.

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees
National Olympic Committees did not yet exist. Over 65% of all athletes were Greek.

Medal count
Ten of the 14 participating nations earned medals, in addition to two medals won by mixed teams (teams made up of athletes from multiple nations). The IOC has retroactively assigned gold, silver and bronze medals to the three best placed athletes in each event to comport with more recent traditions. In this regard, five of the bronze medalists at the Games are unknown: two in swimming and three in gymnastics.

The United States won the most gold medals (11), while host nation Greece won the most medals overall (47), as well as the most silver (18) and bronze (19) medals, finishing with one fewer gold medal than the United States, though having 155 athletes more than the U.S.

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Key

title: 1896 Summer Olympics