ABSTRACT
This essay explores the remarkable practice of testing universal jurisdiction over the past 20 years. After the end of the Cold War, judicial efforts at fighting internal impunity regarding past atrocities and “crimes against humanity” via international judicial bodies, or indeed national courts belonging to other states, seemed a viable option as a complement to domestic trials. However, the selectivity of international prosecutions has contributed to repeated criticisms that the globalization of justice is biased, thus revealing that its application cannot be separated from diplomatic tensions and asymmetry in international power relations. The essay interrogates the tensions between the increasing international determination of criminal justice policies and the obstacles and ambivalences regarding its local implementation. The contribution moves from the Pinochet case, the extradition request against the former Chilean dictator in Madrid’s National Court (1998), to the example of complaints in Argentina concerning human rights violations in the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship (2010). The latter case study inverts the typical relationship between global South and North, with human rights organizations using the proceedings to try to extend the practice of universal jurisdiction to countries in the global North. Paying special attention to sociohistorical actors like victims’ associations, human rights activists, and lawyers and to how they use human rights discourses strategically, notably claiming truth, justice, and reparations, the essay offers a cross-regional analysis that compares these cases with others.
