Abstract: In 1998, General Pinochet was arrested in London on the request of a Spanish judge for crimes committed in Chile. This was one of the first instances in which the principle of universal jurisdiction was actually implemented. According to this international legal principle, a judge can indict foreigners for crimes committed on foreigners in a foreign country. In 2003, Belgium had to abrogate its law on universal jurisdiction after people filed about thirty lawsuits against foreign heads of state, a circumstance met by international reprobation. This article focuses on the recent history of collective mobilization in favor of universal jurisdiction between 1998 and 2003. It shows that the obstacles faced by this international juridical mechanism can be explained by the legal and political divisions among its own advocates. External pressures have thus been all the more effective since the activists in favor of universal jurisdiction were no longer act as a single force.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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