Assembly/AU/11 (XIII) Annex II Page 6   Torture 1984, the crime of attacks on UN personnel under the Convention on Crimes against UN Personnel 1994 and the crime of enforced disappearance within the meaning of the Convention against Enforced Disappearance 2006.8 10. When not constrained otherwise by treaty, states tend to exercise universal jurisdiction in a variety of ways. Some national legislation, jurisprudence or practice may require that universal jurisdiction is to be exercised only when the suspect is subsequently present9 on the territory of the forum state; other national law or practice permits the exercise in absentia10 of such jurisdiction. Some national law or practice requires that suspects or, alternatively, victims be habitually resident in the forum state at the time the criminal justice system is engaged. 11. Treaties which mandate universal jurisdiction tend also to oblige states parties, when a suspect is present in the territory of the state party in question, either to submit the case to their criminal justice authorities for the purpose of prosecution or to extradite the suspect to a state which is willing to do so.11 This obligation, known as the obligation aut dedere aut judicare, is conceptually distinct from universal jurisdiction. The establishment of jurisdiction, universal or otherwise, is a logically prior step: a state must first vest its courts with competence to try given criminal conduct. It is only once such competence has been established that the question whether to prosecute the relevant conduct, or to extradite persons suspected of it, arises. Moreover, the obligation to submit a case to the prosecuting authorities or to extradite applies as much in respect of an underlying jurisdiction based on territoriality, nationality, passive personality, etc as it does to universal jurisdiction. The obligation aut dedere aut judicare is nonetheless relevant to the question of universal jurisdiction, since such a provision compels a state party to exercise the underlying universal jurisdiction that it is also obliged to provide for by the treaty. In short, a state party to one of the treaties in question is not only bound to empower its criminal justice system to exercise universal jurisdiction but is further bound actually to exercise that jurisdiction by means of either considering prosecution or extraditing.                                                                                                                                                                                                   12 August 1949, 75 UNTS 287; Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), Geneva, 8 June 1977, 1125 UNTS 3. 8 For these last three, see above, note 5. 9 See above, note 4. 10 ‘In absentia’ means without the presence of the accused. 11 See Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft Convention, article 7; Unlawful Acts against Aircraft Convention, article 7; Internationally Protected Persons Convention, article 7; Hostages Convention, article 8(1); Nuclear Material Convention, article 10; Torture Convention, article 7(1) and (2); Unlawful Acts against Maritime Navigation Convention, article 10(1); Mercenaries Convention, article 12; UN and Associated Personnel Convention, article 14; Terrorist Bombings Convention, article 8; Financing of Terrorism Convention, article 10(1); Nuclear Terrorism Convention, article 11(1); Enforced Disappearance Convention, article 11(1) and (2). See also 1999 Second Hague Protocol, article 17(1). See too, in more basic form, 1949 Geneva Convention I, article 49; 1949 Geneva Convention II, article 50; 1949 Geneva Convention III, article 129; 1949 Geneva Convention IV, article 146. Version 31 March 09(FINAL)