"..the mere fact that Spain is seeking to extradite General Pinochet for thousands of murders and disappearances in Chile shows how far we have come from the days when tyrants could terrorize their own populations, secure in the knowledge that at worst they would face a tranquil exile."
Reed Brody Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch

Cartons of legal papers clutter the front of the room where five judges in business suits listen to arguments on the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The judges, all white men in their late sixties, sit unelevated in front of the robed and wigged barristers. Most of the audience can't even see the judges, much less follow their questioning over six days about the finer points of English statutes and international conventions.

It's somehow fitting that Pinochet's bloody crimes, which were all about smashing the rule of law, are meeting justice in this colorless room. But the Lords' decision on whether Pinochet enjoys absolute immunity in England -- expected Wednesday -- will have resonance far beyond Westminster. It will become a landmark in international law. Indeed, the mere fact that Spain is seeking to extradite General Pinochet for thousands of murders and disappearances in Chile shows how far we have come from the days when tyrants could terrorize their own populations, secure in the knowledge that at worst they would face a tranquil exile.

Until now, it seemed that if you killed one person, you went to jail, but if you had the power to murder thousands, you also had the power to arrange or impose your immunity, as General Pinochet did in Chile before stepping down in 1990. The post-war Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders, however, established the principle that there should be no immunity for perpetrators of the gravest outrages, no matter who they are or where their crimes were committed. That principle was recognized by the General Assembly of the United Nations as international law and repeated in the Genocide Convention, in the statutes establishing tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and in the treaty for the new permanent international criminal court adopted this summer in Rome.

Pinochet's defense was expected to rest on British domestic law.The High Court for England and Wales, from which the appeal is being heard, held that Pinochet's arrest for possible extradition was barred by Britain's State Immunity Act which gives immunity to "the sovereign or other head of state acting in his public capacity." The three-judge panel construed the Act to apply to former heads of state and held the term "public capacity" to include torture and murder carried out in exercise of the power Pinochet had by virtue of being head of state. One of the judges remarked that "unfortunately, history has shown that it has indeed been state policy sometimes to suppress particular groups."

The barristers' arguments center on the interplay between the words of the British Act and the growing corpus of international law which condemns crimes against humanity in absolute terms. The Crown Prosecution Service, arguing on behalf of the Spanish authorities, asserted that Pinochet's "savage and barbarous crimes ... are not within the functions of a head of state" under English, Chilean or international law. Asserting that the statute must prevail, Pinochet's lawyers even claimed that "Hitler would have been protected" from suit in England. It is obvious that Britain, a country with a long reverence for the symbol of the head of state, is confronting the need to adjust its practice to the requirements of a global system of justice.

Now Switzerland, France and other European countries are lining up behind Spain to seek Pinochet's extradition for crimes committed against their nationals. But the United States -- which backed Pinochet's 1973 coup against the elected government of Salvador Allende and then helped build up his secret police -- has been silent. Two Americans were murdered in Chile, including Frank Horman, about whom the movie "Missing" was made. A 1976 terrorist car- bombing by Pinochet's secret police killed former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt in Washington D.C. Yet the U.S. government has stubbornly refused to express its support for the Spanish prosecution, much less seek the dictator's extradition, and has rebuffed the request of Spanish law enforcement authorities to see classified documents on Pinochet's role in the 1976 bombing.

What about the world's other blood-stained strongmen? Spain's Pinochet prosecution has triggered criminal suits there by the victims of other tyrants, including Morocco's King Hassan, Bolivia's former dictator (later elected President) Hugo Banzer and Cuba's Fidel Castro. Yet the crimes of these men appear small compared to those of Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Congo's Laurent Kabila, and Syria's Hafez al-Asad, to name just a few. Idi Amin sits comfortably in Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia's deposed Mengitsu Haile Mariam enjoys a quiet Zimbabwe retirement, while "Baby Doc" Duvalier is said to have gone through the millions he took to France. Soeharto was forced out of power in Indonesia, but may never be brought to book for an estimated 200,000 deaths since the invasion of East Timor. Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, the CIA-funded leader of Haiti's FRAPH death squad, is a free man in New York City. For the moment, national trials are the only way to achieve justice in these cases. But this places an unfair burden on those countries -- like Spain -- which are prepared to carry them out. Last Sunday, after Chile withdrew its ambassador to Madrid, Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes complained that no one state should have to play the "world's avenger," and called for rapid establishment of the new international criminal court, which requires ratification by 60 states. That court will be able to try future cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes when national courts are unwilling or unable to do so. Lord Slynn, who is presiding at the Pinochet hearings, similarly remarked that "the sooner the Rome court is in existence the better." Unfortunately, the United States continues to oppose the new court because it did not win an iron-clad guarantee that it could block the investigation of U.S.soldiers or policy-makers.

Every country must come to terms with its own past. The international criminal court will not preclude those kinds of legitimate arrangements -- its statute gives clear preference to national prosecutions -- nor should the prosecution of Pinochet. But the Chilean military's self- amnesty can hardly be described as legitimate: it was imposed against the wishes of a majority of Chileans, as a condition of leaving power. Impunity for terrible crimes breeds contempt for the law, and the only conceivable way to prevent future atrocities is by punishing the ones that have already taken place. This case against Pinochet may not end with his extradition and trial. But at the very least, future dictators are on notice: if they try their hand at mass murder, they may not be so lucky.