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REPORTS: HUMAN RIGHTS |
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Two
Triumphs for Universal Justice
Diego
Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - The celebration
of the first anniversary of the
International Criminal Court (ICC)
Tuesday and Mexico's extradition of an
alleged former Argentine torturer to
Spain on charges of crimes against
humanity marked two milestones for
international justice.
Both events, applauded by human rights
groups, academics and political
leaders around the world, strengthen
the principle of universal justice,
according to which the perpetrators of
war crimes, torture, forced
disappearance and
politically-motivated killings are
subject to international jurisdiction
if no national court is able or
willing to handle the cases.
Mexico extradited former Argentine
navy captain Ricardo Miguel Cavallo,
alias Serpico or Marcelo, to Spain on
Saturday, where the ôAudiencia
Nacional”, the country's highest
criminal court, will try him for
crimes against humanity.
The extradition, authorised by
Mexico's Supreme Court in mid-June,
made Cavallo the first serving or
former Latin American military officer
to be prosecuted by a judge from a
third country after being arrested in
a country where he had no legal
problems.
The 52-year-old Cavallo, who was
arrested in August 2000 in Mexico,
where he was leading the life of a
prosperous businessman, is accused of
torturing, killing and ôdisappearing”
dozens of people during the 1976-1983
military dictatorship in Argentina,
where he was let off the hook by
amnesty laws. Between 10,000 and
30,000 people became victims of forced
disappearance during the de facto
regime in Argentina.
Cavallo was a member of the
dictatorship's GT 3.3.2 Task Force, an
intelligence group implicated in
kidnapping and torturing large numbers
of leftists and opponents of the
regime.
The former captain refused to testify
in Spain, denying that the country's
courts had any jurisdiction over him.
Mexico's decision to extradite Cavallo
stood in sharp contrast to the British
government's final decision not to
extradite former Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) to Spain,
where he was wanted by the same judge,
Baltasar Garzón.
After spending nearly one and a half
years under house arrest in London as
a result of the warrant issued by Garzón,
the elderly Pinochet was allowed to
return to Chile in March 2000 by the
British government, which cited his
poor health.
For years, Garzón has spearheaded the
attempt to bring former military
officers in Argentina and Chile to
justice for atrocities committed
against Spanish citizens by the
Southern Cone dictatorships of the
1970s and 1980s.
ôMexico has set an example and
propped up universal justice, which is
why it is being congratulated around
the world today,” Alfonso García,
spokesman in Mexico for the
London-based rights watchdog Amnesty
International, told IPS.
A similar view was expressed by
Adriana Carmona with the Mexican
Commission for the Defence and
Promotion of Human Rights. ”Mexico
has demonstrated that it has an
advanced judiciary, which recognises
the principle of international
justice,” she remarked to IPS.
But both Pérez and Carmona urged the
government of Vicente Fox to take the
final step, and ratify the Rome
Statute, which created the ICC.
A total of 90 nations have ratified
the treaty, which was signed on Jul.
17, 1998 at a United Nations
conference held in Rome. But Mexico
has not yet done so, even though it is
a signatory.
ôThe fact that the ICC has reached
its first anniversary in full-swing
and with a well-defined mission is
another clear victory for universal
justice,” said García.
The ICC, which opened its doors on
Jul. 1, 2002 in The Hague, is the
first permanent international court
set up to try crimes against humanity,
like the ones allegedly committed by
Cavallo.
But the former Argentine officer could
not be tried by the ICC, whose
jurisdiction is not retroactive, and
is limited to crimes against humanity
committed after it was created, in
countries that have ratified the Rome
Statute.
Further, the ICC can only act in cases
in which national courts are unwilling
or unable û due to amnesty laws, for
example û to prosecute those accused
of war crimes, genocide or other
crimes against humanity.
The Cavallo case is emblematic, ôbecause
it has demonstrated that with a little
cooperation between nations, the
principle of universal jurisdiction
can be applied without time limits or
pretexts like the expiration of the
statute of limitations,” said García.
Cavallo was sent to Spain thanks to an
extradition treaty between Mexico and
that southern European country.
”The important thing is that Cavallo
is already being tried in Spain, which
is a triumph for everyone, and for the
ICC to begin to act against current
human rights violators,” said
Carmona.
Diego Beas, an expert in international
law at the Ibero-American University
in Mexico, said that even with its
limitations, the ICC is one of the ômost
important instruments that the
international political will has
created.”
Under the Rome Statute, intervention
by the ICC must be requested by party
states or by the ICC prosecutor. In
addition, the United Nations Security
Council can ask the ICC to handle a
case from a non-signatory state.
The ICC is made up of 18 judges of
different nationalities. Its chief
prosecutor is eminent Argentine lawyer
and prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo. The
justices and Moreno Ocampo have
already received 400 complaints.
But the work of the judges will not be
easy, because the United States and
other powerful countries like China,
Britain and Russia have not ratified
the treaty, which could potentially
leave many perpetrators of crimes
against humanity outside of the
Court's jurisdiction.
Moreover, Washington has successfully
pressed 40 ICC signatory nations to
sign bilateral treaties that leave
U.S. citizens, especially soldiers, in
their countries outside of the
jurisdiction of the ICC. In Latin
America, the list includes Bolivia, El
Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the
Dominican Republic and Panama.
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