Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL

Complementarity and the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction for
Core International Crimes
charged several suspects with genocide, and requested their extradition. In
November 2006, at least two of the eight defendants were arrested in Guatemala,
but on 17 December 2007 the Constitutional Court of Guatemala
refused to acknowledge that a Spanish court has jurisdiction to put them
on trial. 141
On 22 February 2008, the Spanish Cabinet approved the second extradition
of Ricardo Taddei to Argentina. Taddei had originally been
handed over to the Argentine authorities on 26 April 2007, but as a result
of this new decision he can now also be put on trial for the additional
crimes of illegal arrest and torture committed in Argentina during its dirty
war period. 142
On 23 September 2009, the Spanish police arrested an Argentineborn
commercial pilot, Julio Alberto Poch, wanted in connection with the
deaths of 1,000 people during his South American country‟s “Dirty War”
period between1976 and 1983. He was ordered extradited to Argentina by
the High Court on 20 January 2010.
On 2 March 2010, Spanish police have arrested an alleged Serbian
war criminal known as the “Monster of Grbavica” and wanted for the
murders of more than 100 people during the Bosnian war. Veselin Vlahović
was detained on Monday near his home in the eastern town of Altea
as part of an investigation into a gang which was carrying out burglaries
in Spain.
Thirteen other investigations have also been opened in the last couple
of years, a number of them dealing with Chinese and American officials.
One of the investigations in respect to China was opened in 2006
involves the commission of genocide during the occupation in Tibet in
tional Tribunal‟s Decision in Guatemalan Generals: Unconditional Universality is
Back”, JICJ, 2006, vol. 4, no. 3, 586-594; Paul Scott, “The Guatemala Genocide
Cases: Universal Jurisdiction and Its Limits” , Journal of Int‟l and Comp. Law, 2009,
vol. 9. This wide interpretation of universal jurisdiction was curtailed by the Spanish
legislator on 15 October 2009 by limiting jurisdiction to those offenses committed by
or against Spaniards, or where the perpetrators are in Spain but only for prospective
investigations.
141 “Guatemalan officials dodge genocide extraditions”, Reuters, 17 December 2007.
142 YIHL, 2008, vol. 11, 562.
FICHL Publication Series No. 7 (2010) – page 54