Opponents of the application of universal jurisdiction in national courts argue that such trials will not deter crimes, but will instead create an even more dangerous and volatile international milieu by eroding the necessary comity in relations between sovereign states. Some detractors of universal jurisdiction have gone so far as to warn that these trials could dismantle the Westphalian system of sovereign nation-states itself. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, himself the subject of universal jurisdiction initiatives in Chile, has compared universal jurisdiction to a "witch hunt" and warned that it could quickly devolve into a "new Inquisition."

But when Belgian magistrate Patrick Collignon ruled that the Sabra and Shatila plaintiffs' case was admissible in Belgium on the same day that former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was transported to a prison cell at The Hague to face an ad hoc international tribunal, the progressive evolution of international criminal prosecution seemed to be accelerating at breathtaking speed.