Abstract
Twenty years after signing the UN Torture Convention, States finally start to exercise universal jurisdiction over torture offenses. In 2004 and 2005, courts in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France, acting under the universality principle, convicted foreign torture offenders to prison sentences. Practical hurdles to successful torture prosecutions remain high though. In addition, a number of legal questions are not yet fully clarified, in particular the operation of the principle of subsidiarity, the contours of the presence requirement and the application of the UN Torture Convention to offences committed before the entry into force of the convention. The outlook for universal jurisdiction over torture nonetheless seems reasonably bright.