POLI 359 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Innocent Victims, Authoritarianism, Peremptory Norm
Document Summary
The law and politics of the pinochet case. October 1998 general augusto pinochet arrested in london by the metropolitan police at the request of a. Pinochet accused by spanish magistrate of having (in the decades following his 1973 violent overthrow of the democratically elected president salvador allende) authorized: the torture, disappearance, and taking as hostage thousands of people. His victims included chilean, uk, and spanish citizens. Crimes alleged to have formed part of an international conspiracy to track down and murder opponents of his military regime in chile, the us, and elsewhere. Nature of criminal acts: some crimes (like torture) considered crimes under international law . Perpetrators of which may be prosecuted by any state regardless of their nationality / nationality of victims / country where acts were committed. So, why was there an obstacle to pinochet"s arrest: pinochet"s lawyers.