Head of State Immunity

Head of State Immunity has been a long running debate for politicians, judges, lawyers and the court system. There have been many attempts to create a separation with regards to immunity between the leaders and their countries. These attempts have been in part from the justice system and the law makers and foreign country leaders. This is largely due to the rights of political and diplomatic leaders to be protected while performing military operations, ceremonial and ambassador type duties for their countries. Although the larger question would be what are the duties that should be protected and what should not, that seems to make little difference in accordance to the law. The purpose of my research is to test the fundamentals of the justice system in regards to Head of State Immunity. My questions are where should the limitations for Head of State Immunity be drawn and when has Universal Jurisdiction been successful in trying Heads of State?

I aim to utilize my research data compiled of court cases, court opinions and legal documents to prove my hypotheses which are:

H1: Universal Jurisdiction is successful in trying Heads of States when charges are brought by citizens of the country rather than foreign nationals.

H2: Heads of States can be held accountable for their crimes when their country prosecutes them rather than foreign countries.

With regards to H1, I examined the case, court notes and legal of the notorious Augusto Pinochet former Head of State in Chile. Pinochet was in a London hospital recovering when he was initially arrested by means of an arrest warrant issued by the Spanish government. Pinochet was accused of terrorism, genocide, and torture by the citizens of Spain, Chile, Argentina, Britain and other countries during “Operativo Condor”. The case of Pinochet created as precedent for law makers to enact laws surrounding universal jurisdiction, extradition, harboring criminals from prosecution and extradition. The UK arrested Pinochet using...