The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights

Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights

by Naomi Roht-Arriaza

The 1998 arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London and subsequent extradition proceedings sent an electrifying wave through the international community. This legal precedent for bringing a former head of state to trial outside his home country signaled that neither the immunity of a former head of state nor legal amnesties at home could shield participants in the crimes of military governments. It also allowed victims of torture and crimes against humanity to hope that their tormentors might be brought to justice. In this meticulously researched volume, Naomi Roht-Arriaza examines the implications of the litigation against members of the Chilean and Argentine military governments and traces their effects through similar cases in Latin American and Europe.

Roht-Arriaza discusses the difficulties in bringing violators of human rights to justice at home, and considers the role of transitional justice in transnational prosecutions and investigations in the national courts of countries other than those where the crimes took place. She traces the roots of the landmark Pinochet case and follows its development and those of related cases, through Spain, the United Kingdom, elsewhere in Europe, and then through Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and the United States. She situates these transnational cases within the context of an emergent International Criminal Court, as well as the effectiveness of international law and of the lawyers, judges, and activists working together across continents to make a new legal paradigm a reality. Interviews and observations help to contextualize and dramatize these compelling cases.

These cases have tremendous ramifications for the prospect of universal jurisdiction and will continue to resonate for years to come. Roht-Arriaza's deft navigation of these complicated legal proceedings elucidates the paradigm shift underlying this prosecution as well as the traction gained by advocacy networks promoting universal jurisdiction in recent decades.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2005

Reviews

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was talking to a human rights lawyer in Chile and he told me I should read this book by someone with my name who was also from California - I needed no further impetus. I read this half out of personal interest and enjoyment and also partly for a research paper I'm writing. So maybe all the stars are because many of her arguments match my ideas and are useful for my research. But I also found this to be a very thorough, very well done analysis of all the pieces. I particularly liked how she addressed the pros/cons of universal jurisdiction and the roles of certain key actors, including victims and exile networks.

[Nitza Cabral · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to give it 3.5 bc it had some good intellectual points but oh my god it was lowkey a nightmare to read. Maybe it’s just me? But I felt like she devoted way too much real estate to detailing all of the individual actors for each case she was discussing, and maybes that’s the “lawyerly” way to document a history but I got so lost in the names I would have to reread whole sections multiple times just to remember wtf she said at the beginning and how it related to the end. Like in the conclusion she stated her purpose for writing the book and I was really like “wait THATS what you were trying to say the whole time.” It was like, she had a good argument, in the end, but it was so incoherently strung together I struggled to see the relevance of each case study to her overall thesis, which I suppose was unclear to me from the start. So I’m giving it 4 stars bc I think histories like this that aim to show the value of the development of international jurisprudence are valuable, but the way she told the story was just so confusing. I’m so bummed I didn’t enjoy reading it at all because I actually think it is useful. Oh and it took me for fucking ever to finish bc I was so annoyed with it I could only read it in small bits.