2007 Annual Student Human Rights Conference
24th February 2007
University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre
“International Criminal Accountability”
Panel Theme: Universal Jurisdiction
Paper Title: JUSTICE FOR THE “DESAPARECIDOS” IN ARGENTINA.
Universal jurisdiction as a reinforcement mechanism for local justice to
deal with the past.
Author: Julieta Mira julieta_mira@yahoo.com.ar
The last dictatorship in Argentina committed egregious crimes from 1976 to 1983. Between
10.000 and 30.000 persons were clandestinely kidnapped, tortured, assassinated and they
are still “desaparecidos”. At least 500 children were born in clandestine centres of detention
or were kidnappened with their parents; they also are missing and are the only
“desaparecidos” today alive.
Nowadays, thirty years later, justice is possible in Argentina because the criminal trials for
crimes against humanity were reopened before the domestic tribunals in 2005, after previous
trials had been interrupted over twenty years by different forms of amnesty laws. The justice
process has started again thanks to the international and local political pressure from the
victims, human rights organisations and courts outside Argentina for terminating the impunity.
The Spanish National Court and the judge Baltasar Garzón accepted a criminal complain and
a actio popularis, charging a number of Argentine former military officers with crimes of
genocide and terrorism on the basis of the principle of universal jurisdiction. Then, Garzón
issued an international arrest warrant for over a hundred former members of the security
forces in Argentina. In spite of the Argentine refusal of cooperation, the Spanish judiciary
sent to trial Adolfo Scilingo (because he voluntary surrendered himself to the Spanish
authorities) under the charge of genocide. In 2005, Scilingo was sentenced to 640 years in jail
and this judgment opens a great number of legal debates and criticisms.
The main important point is that these Spanish proceedings helped to maintain alive the
struggle for justice (during the time of the amnesty laws in Argentina), and were useful for
pushing the local government to respect its international commitments related with human
rights. As a result, only one foreign judgment with real enforcement was sufficient to promote
the end of the impunity in Argentina. Two months later from the Scilingo judgment, the
Argentine Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the amnesty laws and allows the lawful
restart of the domestic proceedings; taking into account in their decision the Spanish exercise
of universal jurisdiction and the Argentine international responsibility with accountability for
1
Julieta Mira
European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC)
European Master in Human Rights and Democratisation (E.MA)
2007 Annual Student Human Rights Conference
24th February 2007
University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre
“International Criminal Accountability”
human rights violations from the past.
For these reasons, this is an interesting example of
the positive relationships between foreign criminal accountability and national (local) justice.
The Supreme Court decision was only a starting point for local accountability. During 2006,
two previous perpetrators were convicted by local courts in Argentina. First, Julio Simón, a
former policeman, was sentenced to 25 years of prison. Second, Miguel Etchecolatz, former
police intelligence officer, was sentenced to life imprisonment. In this last case, the Judge
Carlos Rozanski followed (and also quoted) the arguments explained by the Spanish National
Court decision in 1998 (in which their extraterritorial jurisdiction in the Argentine case was
confirmed). These two judgments are an example of the development of the local justice in
Argentina. At the same time, these proceedings are a proof of the exercise of the Argentine
jurisdiction, for this reason the Spanish judiciary relinquished its universal jurisdiction in the
Miguel Cavallo case (another former repressor who was extradited from Mexico to Spain to
be judge), in 2006 after the reopened of the trial for the ESMA clandestine detention centre.
This Spanish-Argentine case-study provides some useful lessons to be learnt:

Universal jurisdiction is more than a substitute jurisdiction and became a
reinforcement mechanism for local justice to deal with the past.

Foreign and local jurisdiction can built together a “virtuous circle” for pursuing
justice, from both political and legal point of view.

Universal jurisdiction not exclude the territorial jurisdiction, because is the nature
and more convenient jurisdiction for legal, procedural and political reasons. Indeed,
the process of “reconciliation” is needed where the atrocities took place. This was the
clear position of the Spanish Court.

Achieve justice after a period of mass violence and gross human rights violations
requires the development of different strategies and legal creativeness, with
strong persistence and advocacy; as for example the development of foreign trials.

The transnational network of NGOs, human rights activists, victims, relatives and
lawyers with a great commitment with justice and an active participation in the foreign
trials make the principle of universal jurisdiction a reality.
Summing up, the justice process in Argentina is a case-study for: a) understanding the
necessity of justice for the local and international society in the sense of stopping the
impunity; b) analyzing different impacts of universal jurisdiction against local impunity; c)
considering the universal responsibility for dealing with the past; c) visualizing the localuniversal guarantee of the non-repetition of the atrocities; and d) for keeping safe the social
and universal promise of “Never Again”.
2
Julieta Mira
European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC)
European Master in Human Rights and Democratisation (E.MA)