How many are you cognizant of Col. Kumar Lama's arrest in UK?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20914282
I am sure most have heard by now, but this case needs more thought than Piers Morgan - Alex Jones feud IMO.

What's your take on this?

Snurp
You are only looking it from a crime's perspective and I am trying to tell you that a country's sovereignty is at stake.

"How many examples do you want of that around the world?" Where is the example?? Give me an example of where a criminal is prosecuted and sentenced in a country for a crime he committed in a different country that he is a citizen of. Heck, even Saddam was hung in Iraq and that country was all screwed up. Nepal wasn't even given this much of respect?

Since our government is so inept, why don't we also let our economic, domestic and legal process be controlled by another country? Sure India has a big influence but on paper we are a sovereign nation and no country has the right to take our rights away from us.

 Kiddo,

Fundamentally, there are crimes that transcend the boundary of the origin of the place where crimes were/are committed. As such, there are a plethora of Universal Jurisdictions that most of the countries have ratified and duly accepted its legality and scope of prosecution of an individual and an organization who have committed crime that falls under those statures. These statures mostly came as a response to moral obligation of the world to fellow human beings. Principally, they act as an assurance to enforce laws at elements egregiously violating the universal human rights (there are many inequitable cases that don’t verily translate to aggression, but we can be fairly certain when there is genocide, tortures, and persecution of dissidents etc). The perpetrators have an utter disregard to their own constitution and a universal right is least of their worries, especially in third world countries where human rights violation is rampant and casual! These statures are a weak form of deterrence, but deterrence nevertheless. Nonetheless, they make sure (at least in paper) where an intervention is needed and specify objective cases for trying a person/organization for alleged human rights violation, and strip them of the immunity they might otherwise enjoy in their home country.

I see that your primary issue is about the sovereignty of a nation, and conversely the right of a nation to prosecute an individual of crimes committed outside of that nation. Mostly, the nations that detain and try individuals who were/are in a position of higher authority and had direct accountability of the crimes committed under their guardianship. There is no arbitrary reason to detain an individual, and if he/she is wrongly detained, there is a due process that is to be followed and as a result, a possible restitution is paid to the person wrongly tried. As had been mentioned earlier, even the powerful nations mostly fry the big fishes of small nations- but that’s a about enforceability and willingness to trade for the bilateral relationship with the counterpart nation.

And yes, Bush had been accused of crimes against humanity for certainly committing crimes in U.S. among others; Guantanamo Bay: although it is a territory of Cuba, U.S. leased from them and is technically a U.S. territory. 

Alternate
I am glad somebody brought up the topic of Universal Jurisdictions (UJ). This is a valid argument.

While, I support the idea behind UJ, I believe it has to be a charter motion in UN and all states need to ratify it before any one state starts blatantly enforcing it. This is no where close to an universally accepted charter, see pointers from various delegates regarding this:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/gal3442.doc.htm

Let's talk legality. From what I have read, while Human Rights group advocate torture as one of the criterion where UJ can be invoked, UK law doesn't say so. It includes such things as terrorism, Fraud, Dishonesty etc. They might bring up another angle to fight this case, but the bottomline is it is not black and white.

Last time UJ was discussed in the context of UK, was when an Israeli citizen was about to be charged for some war crime. The case had to be dismissed because the person was not in UK territory, but also because of Israel's powerful pressure against this. Israel was pretty much miffed up about it and UK took heed.


Once UJ has been acknowledged and accepted, I think it will serve good for the mankind. Otherwise, the big fish will keep punishing the small fish. Nepal, as a sovereign nation, should continue pressuring UK on this particular issue.

As had been noted in different media, there is a provision of Universal Jurisdiction in the UK which has been recently passed and rarely used.  http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/press-releases/moj/pressrelease150911a

It is understandable why many countries including U.S. are opposed to Universal Jurisdiction (most of the nations opposing are countries with poor human rights record). They fear they could be detained and prosecuted while on a foreign soil or could be tried in absence. This is nothing but a copout. Although there are international tribunals that look only into serious cases of human rights violence, they are very slow in delivering justice.

If the judiciary in all countries were powerful and efficient, you would hardly have a case for a tribunal or implementation of UJ. Alas! it’s not the case right now; hence a need of UJ.

Re Kumar Lama, Nepal government needs to provide him logistics support just like it would support other citizen. They failed at home to prosecute individuals who committed crime at home. I don’t see a moral standing of this government to preemptively defend the allegation of human right violence because they know they are next.

I only hope he gets a fair trial. 

This definitely shows the legal ground for UK to prosecute him; I wasn't sure about torture being one of them and thanks for the link.

This still seems very "super-power"-ish; like the old Great Britain. So, David Cameron comes to Nepal and we arrest him saying we have this law in our country which grants us the authority to arrest the leader of any nation that had any part, even a small involvement, in a public crime. Your involvement in Murdoch scandal grants us right to arrest you under our law. How fair is that?

The reason I don't agree with this is that we are surrendering our citizens to a judicial proceedings that our citizens have never approved of. Sure we don't elect our supreme court, but we elect the president and Constitutional council which sends the chief Justice there. WHAT IS OUR SAY IN ALL THIS? Until and unless, nations ratify this kind of charter, no country should have right to enforce its power over anybody.

Thanks for that link. I agree with your last para. I am not advocating for Kumar Lama, I am advocating for citizens of Nepal and my country's right.

 If David Cameron visits Nepal, he would be the first sitting (or not) British prime minister to do so. And if he is arrested in Nepal, he would still be the first British prime minister to be arrested in Nepal or anywhere. It would be really interesting and funny, but mostly interesting.