UNITED NATIONS

Press Release

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.