HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS SAYS DECISION ON PINOCHET CASE WILL "HEARTEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AROUND THE WORLD"

HR/98/90

25 November 1998



The following statement was made today by High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson:

The decision handed down today by the House of Lords on the Pinochet case will hearten human rights defenders around the world. In overturning the ruling of the High Court that General Augusto Pinochet benefits from "sovereign immunity", the Law Lords have raised the hope that he will finally be brought to face allegations before a court and confirmed the emerging international consensus against impunity.

The decision of the Law Lords, and the initiative of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon to ask for Mr. Pinochet's extradition, would have been unthinkable not so long ago. Both were made possible by a turn in the tide in international law, as evidenced last summer in Rome with the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. The statute is meant to counter impunity for particularly egregious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. The Governments in Rome were inspired by the basic principle, rooted in the ancient laws and customs of cultures around the world, that all individuals, regardless of official rank or capacity, are legally bound to refrain from committing such horrific crimes as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Rome Statute envisages the establishment of a permanent international criminal court to handle in a more comprehensive and prospective manner similar kinds of cases that have come before the ad hoc organs created by the UN Security Council: the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Domestic courts too have the authority to prosecute and punish individuals for crimes under international law, or failing that, to extradite, transfer or surrender an alleged offender to face criminal proceedings in another country - as the Pinochet case illustrates - according to one of the oldest and most well established principles of international
law, that of aut dedere aut judicare. Several international instruments, including the UN Convention against Torture, legally require States to establish jurisdiction over such offences. States that accept these conventions must either extradite offenders or try them, and they expressly confirm in these treaties that the defence of sovereign immunity shall not be available. Just last week, the Committee against Torture recommended that in the case of Mr. Pinochet the matter be referred to the office of the public prosecutor, "with a view to examining the feasibility of, and if appropriate initiating criminal proceedings in England", in the event that the decision was made not to extradite him.

The outcome in the Pinochet case reinforces the need for States to ratify the Statute of the International Criminal Court. This Court would pave the way towards consistent, comprehensive and universal prosecution and punishment of international crimes and help avoid embroiling Governments and domestic courts in difficult complications arising from diplomatic relations.