III. Extradition Law Aspects of Pinochet 3

Abstract

The prominence of the immunity issue in Pinochet 12 rather obscured the fact that the proceedings were ultimately about extradition. Perhaps that was how it should have been because immunity questions are recognised as preliminary matters, going to the very competence of a court to hear and determine the substantive claim. However, there can be questions which are, as it were, even more preliminary than ones about immunity. One example is where a party argues that there is no substance whatever to the right a State claims and which it is seeking to protect from adjudication by relying on one version or another of immunity.3 When the extradition aspects of the case resurfaced in Pinochet 3, the opposite, pre-preliminary situation was presented: did the extradition crimes specified in the warrants from Spain require any answer from Pinochet, such that could he avoid being handed over, without it being necessary for him to raise any claim of immunity?