Elena Maculan
ELENA MACULAN is Professor (Profesora Titular de Universidad) of Criminal Law at UNED, Madrid. She also holds the position of Secretary General of UNED since December 2022. She holds a PhD in “Comparative and European Legal Studies” by the University of Trento (Italy) and in “Peace and International Security” by the UNED of Madrid (Spain), under a co-tutelage regime. She also holds the Label of “Doctor Europaeus” and the Extraordinary Prize for PhD fellows of both Universities. The title of the dissertation, which was held in March 2012 and which got a cum laude final mark, was: “The role of Latin-American Supreme Courts in the development of International Criminal Law. Jurisprudential Trends in International Crimes”. Her teaching activities at UNED encompass Criminal Law, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law and Penitentiary Law. She previously held a post-doc research fellowship at UNED in Madrid, under the excellence program “Ramón y Cajal” sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. She has been lecturer at the University of Trento (Italy), where she taught Transitional Justice, International Criminal Law and Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. She is member of the Research Project “Collective Identities and Criminal Law” (2023-2026) directed by Prof. José Núñez and Prof. Alicia Gil. Previously, she has been the director (together with Prof. Alicia Gil Gil) of a Research Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and titled “The execution of sanctions for terrorist offenders” (2019-2022). She previously participated in other two Research Projects directed by Prof. Alicia Gil and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness: “Victims’ influence on legal handling of collective violence” (2014-2017) and “Modes of liability and International Criminal Law. Rules to impose Criminal Liability for international crimes”. She has published extensively in international journals, such as the International Journal of Human Rights, the International Criminal Law Review and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, as well as many book chapters, either in Italian, Spanish or English. She is author of two books titled “Realidad penitenciaria y “utopía” restaurativa en las condenas por delitos de terrorismo” (Dykinson, 2023) and “Los crímenes internacionales en la jurisprudencia latinoamericana” (Marcial Pons, 2019) and she co-authored a book titled “El derecho a la verdad y su ejercicio por medio del proceso penal” (with Prof. Daniel Pastor; Hammurabi, 2013).
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Address: Facultad de Derecho
C/ Obispo Trejo, 2, 3ª planta,
28040 MADRID
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The judicial interpretation of torture provides therefore some relevant suggestions that could both enhance the potentialities of cross-fertilisation and overcome its dangers.
The analysis of some key aspects of the two main mechanisms of the Colombian peace process, namely, the Justice and Peace Process and the integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition, allows us to observe that the construction of memory in the transitional processes is a mediated objective, which is reached through a prior work of ascertaining the facts, clarification of the dynamics and recognition of responsibility. Several actors contribute to this work, among which two stand out: on the one hand, the Truth Commissions and, on the other,
criminal justice, which nonetheless in these contexts finds itself narrowed through a series of limits, both intrinsic and contingents.
This perspective has been overturned by the Katanga judgment, on which the second part of this article will focus. This judgment correctly argues that the distinction between perpetrators and accomplices is grounded only on the autonomous or vicarious character of their contribution to the offence. Furthermore, it follows a partly different approach as to both the methodology and the interpretation of the constitutive elements of principal liability. In our view, this approach better fits both the relevant statutory provision and the basic principles of criminal law.
que la Corte Suprema peruana ha condenado al
antiguo Presidente Alberto Fujimori a veinticinco
años de reclusión por algunos de los crímenes
masivos cometidos bajo su mandato. Entre los
muchos aspectos interesantes de esta sentencia, este
trabajo se detiene en examinar las figuras aplicadas
para tipificar los hechos que constituyen objeto del
juicio y, sobre todo, en la calificación de Fujimori
como “autor mediato por dominio de la voluntad en
aparatos de poder organizados”, en aplicación de la
conocida teoría elaborada por Roxin. Ambos
aspectos destacan por la aplicación de categorías del
derecho penal nacional a una manifestación criminal
que, debido a su naturaleza masiva y sistemática,
puede entrañar un crimen internacional, y demuestran
por ende las potencialidades de los instrumentos
ya existentes y del método comparado para arraigar
en sólidas bases dogmáticas las innovaciones
impuestas por las exigencias de la realidad y por la
especificidad de los crímenes internacionales. La
sentencia de la Corte Suprema peruana, recuperando
y readaptando categorías del derecho penal nacional
en el marco de una compleja interacción entre
fuentes y niveles normativos distintos, demuestra
que es posible, gracias a un esfuerzo conjunto
judicial y doctrinal, garantizar una respuesta sancionatoria
adecuada a los crímenes internacionales en el
respeto de los principios que fundamentan el Estado
constitucional de derecho.
***
This article analyses the consistency of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP), envisaged in the Peace Agreement that was signed by the Colombian Government and the FAARC-EP with the international duty to prosecute and punish those responsible for international crimes and gross human rights violations. Firstly, it describes the content of this duty and the existence of two opposed interpretations of it. Special attention is paid to the position of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and of the International Criminal Court regarding this point. Secondly, with a flexible interpretation of the international duty as a starting point, the article analyses three elements that are especially critical in the SJP, that is, the amnesty for political crimes and related offences, the “own sanctions” and “alternative sanctions” and the policy for the selection of cases and definition of priorities. The aim is to demonstrate that all these mechanisms do not infringe the duty to prosecute and punish and that, on the contrary, they are necessary and valuable tools for achieving peace.
***
This article analyses the tensions created by the international duty to prosecute and punish international crimes and gross human rights violations in transitional contexts. The contribution firstly describes the sources, content and scope of this duty, by pointing out its current lack of definition and uniformity. Secondly, it analyses its impact both on the concept of Criminal Law and, especially, on transitional processes. It is argued that these extraordinary contexts call for a flexible interpretation of this duty, in order to better comply with the specific need of both massive criminality and transitional processes. Additionally, a flexible interpretation is the one that better fits in the goals of the criminal trial and the punishment within these scenarios. From this perspective, the article suggests some guidelines to grant and ground the compatibility between the duty to prosecute and punish and some transitional mechanisms (such as amnesties, pardons, selection and priority criteria, and so on) that imply a limitation in the application of Criminal Law (at one of its stages or all of them) but that can also become essential tools for transitional processes.
***
In post-conflict situations, different solutions have been offered to confront the legacy of past crimes, depending on the political and social situations of the moment. However, the theoretical construction that seems prevalent today tends to give criminal justice absolute prominence in these contexts. This article proposes an analysis, which is often overlooked, of the specific purposes and possibilities of this instrument in relation to victims and society. Our thesis is that, due to the exceptionality of these situations, an exercise in weighting between all the interests and objectives at stake and the flexibility of the application of criminal justice are
necessary, in search of the best possible combination for ensure the ultimate objective of maintaining the social order and peaceful coexistence between the individuals who make up a society.
From the perspective of criminal law, truth-finding trials present two problematic features: firstly, their creation and regulation are set by judges, which has caused the development of many non-homogeneous local solutions and, secondly, their hybrid nature, which entails a possible subversion of conventional forms and goals in the context of the criminal trial.
The paper also describes the current situation, since the Argentine impunity laws were declared unconstitutional and criminal proceedings reopened. The new framework provokes questions about the relationship between the reopened criminal trials and the truth-finding investigations, not only with regard to evidentiary issues but also with respect to the reason why the truth-finding investigations are still held.
Finally, the shift from a non-punitive approach to the current full criminal accountability seems to suggest that truth-finding trials were merely a temporary solution, while the notion of the full prosecution and punishment of State crimes was never really set aside.
El 1 de diciembre de 1990 Habré fue apartado del poder, provocando su huida a Senegal. Tras varios intentos fallidos de sentarle en el banquillo, finalmente fue juzgado en este país, por un Tribunal ad hoc, las Salas Africanas Extraordinarias. La larga lucha emprendida por la sociedad civil chadiana desde que el dictador huye hasta que le arrestan, en 2013, ha sido determinante para alcanzar este resultado, especialmente el papel desempeñado por las mujeres, que ayudaron a impulsar la investigación de los crímenes cometidos, demostrando así un ejemplo de resistencia contra el régimen totalitario bajo el que habían vivido.
Durante el juicio, que dio comienzo en julio de 2015, diferentes testimonios fueron narrando las historias de terror. Sin lugar a duda, el papel de las mujeres víctimas de la dictadura, que llevaron el relato de sus abusos ante el tribunal, fue clave para avanzar en la investigación y aportar las pruebas necesarias para dictar sentencia. Habré fue condenado a cadena perpetua.
A través del caso del Chad, este estudio pretende poner de manifiesto los efectos que esta y otras dictaduras, implicadas en violaciones sistemáticas de derechos humanos, han tenido y tienen sobre la población civil y especialmente sobre las mujeres en el continente africano, así como exponer el papel de las mujeres en los procesos de justicia transicional que se desencadenan ante el colapso de un régimen dictatorial.
***
During Hissène Habré's mandate, between 1982 and 1990, more than 40,000 people were murdered and tens of thousands more were tortured in Chad. This dictator exerted a tight control over the population and used abusive tactics that led to massive human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Women became a particularly vulnerable group, suffering arbitrary detentions, systematic rape, torture and sexual slavery.
On December 1, 1990, Habré was removed from power, causing his flight to Senegal. After some failed attempts to put him in the dock, he was eventually indicted before and ad hoc tribunal created in the latter country, the Extraordinary African Chambers. The long struggle waged by Chadian civil society since the dictator flees until his arrest in 2013 has been decisive, especially the role played by women, who helped to promote the investigation of the crimes, thereby offering an example of struggle and resistance against the totalitarian regime under which they had lived.
During the trial, which began in July 2015, different testimonies narrated the atrocious stories. Undoubtedly, the role of women victims of the dictatorship, who brought the account of their abuses before the court, was essential to advance in the investigation and to provide the necessary evidence to issue a conviction. Habré was sentenced to life imprisonment.
By describing the case of Chad, this study aims at higlighting the effects that this dictatorship, as well as other ones, implied in massive human rights violations, have had and still have onto civilians and especially women in the African continent. It also stresses the key role played by women in the transitional justice processes that stem form the collaps of a dictatorial regime.
El 1 de diciembre de 1990 Habré fue apartado del poder, provocando su huida a Senegal. Tras varios intentos fallidos de sentarle en el banquillo, finalmente fue juzgado en este país, por un Tribunal ad hoc, las Salas Africanas Extraordinarias. La larga lucha emprendida por la sociedad civil chadiana desde que el dictador huye hasta que le arrestan, en 2013, ha sido determinante para alcanzar este resultado, especialmente el papel desempeñado por las mujeres, que ayudaron a impulsar la investigación de los crímenes cometidos, demostrando así un ejemplo de resistencia contra el régimen totalitario bajo el que habían vivido.
Durante el juicio, que dio comienzo en julio de 2015, diferentes testimonios fueron narrando las historias de terror. Sin lugar a duda, el papel de las mujeres víctimas de la dictadura, que llevaron el relato de sus abusos ante el tribunal, fue clave para avanzar en la investigación y aportar las pruebas necesarias para dictar sentencia. Habré fue condenado a cadena perpetua.
A través del caso del Chad, este estudio pretende poner de manifiesto los efectos que esta y otras dictaduras, implicadas en violaciones sistemáticas de derechos humanos, han tenido y tienen sobre la población civil y especialmente sobre las mujeres en el continente africano, así como exponer el papel de las mujeres en los procesos de justicia transicional que se desencadenan ante el colapso de un régimen dictatorial.
***
During Hissène Habré's mandate, between 1982 and 1990, more than 40,000 people were murdered and tens of thousands more were tortured in Chad. This dictator exerted a tight control over the population and used abusive tactics that led to massive human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Women became a particularly vulnerable group, suffering arbitrary detentions, systematic rape, torture and sexual slavery.
On December 1, 1990, Habré was removed from power, causing his flight to Senegal. After some failed attempts to put him in the dock, he was eventually indicted before and ad hoc tribunal created in the latter country, the Extraordinary African Chambers. The long struggle waged by Chadian civil society since the dictator flees until his arrest in 2013 has been decisive, especially the role played by women, who helped to promote the investigation of the crimes, thereby offering an example of struggle and resistance against the totalitarian regime under which they had lived.
During the trial, which began in July 2015, different testimonies narrated the atrocious stories. Undoubtedly, the role of women victims of the dictatorship, who brought the account of their abuses before the court, was essential to advance in the investigation and to provide the necessary evidence to issue a conviction. Habré was sentenced to life imprisonment.
By describing the case of Chad, this study aims at higlighting the effects that this dictatorship, as well as other ones, implied in massive human rights violations, have had and still have onto civilians and especially women in the African continent. It also stresses the key role played by women in the transitional justice processes that stem form the collaps of a dictatorial regime.
Pero quizás no muchos sepan que esa preciosa plazoleta, a la sombra del Palazzo Ducale, fue durante mucho tiempo un lugar del horror, ya que era el sitio donde se solían ejecutar las condenas a muerte impuestas por el Consejo dei Diexe (Consejo de los Diez, el supremo órgano judicial y político, cuya jurisdicción abarcaba los delitos de lesa majestad) y de los demás tribunales con competencia penal.
La poderosa Repubblica di Venezia (llamada Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia desde el siglo XVII), durante sus más de mil años de existencia , se ganó la fama de ser especialmente cruel e inflexible en el ejercicio de la acción penal, no solamente por el recurso sistemático a la tortura durante los interrogatorios, sino también por la cantidad y la modalidad de ejecuciones públicas que se realizaron bajo su mando.
En realidad, como veremos, esta fama no es del todo merecida, ya que la aplicación de la pena de muerte en Venecia no es comparable, numéricamente, con la experiencia de otras Signoríe de las mismas épocas. Es más: estudios históricos más recientes han mostrado que la justicia veneciana tenía algunos rasgos que, sin quitar la crueldad de esta pena en sí, le daban un carácter algo más acorde con el principio de humanidad que se iría afirmando gracias al pensamiento ilustrado. Me refiero, por un lado, a la previsión de excepciones y de tratos más favorables para determinadas categorías de sujetos, consideradas más vulnerables, y, por otro, a la ajenidad a lógicas de privilegios y favores basados en la pertenencia a la clase noble.
Al margen de estos rasgos, es innegable que la ejecución de las condenas a muerte, con su ritualidad tan marcada, con la participación de la ciudadanía, con la realización “itinerante”, como veremos, con los procedimientos terroríficos con los que se aplicaba, tenía como ingredientes esenciales la crueldad y el horror. Estos elementos tenían una fuerte valencia simbólica y ejemplar, a la que contribuía también el uso amplio del espacio urbano, que llevó a la consolidación de verdaderos lugares del terror.
La previsión normativa y la práctica jurisprudencial de las sanciones penales por parte de los tribunales penales internacionales (TTPPII) e internacionalizados muestran una clara tendencia al paulatino abandono de las facetas “crueles” de la pena. Esta evolución puede apreciarse esencialmente en relación con tres aspectos: el abandono de la pena de muerte, las limitaciones en la aplicación de la cadena perpetua y el quantum de pena concretamente impuesto en la práctica jurisprudencial.
***
After the imposition of death penalty by the first two International Criminal Tribunals (Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals), this sanction has disappeared from the Statutes of the later Tribunals. International Criminal Law has opted instead for imprisonment for a certain term and life sentence. The serving of these sentences takes place in domestic systems, other than the country in which the crimes were committed. The tribunal that issued the judgment (being it either one of the ad hoc Tribunals or the International Criminal Court) is in charge of supervising the sentence and its review, although the daily issues related to execution fall within the competence of the receiving State, thereby following a mixed model. The review of sentences, which implies the possibility to get access to early release or parole, has become more relevant as time (and the terms of sentences already served) passed. This has led to the progressive development of a procedure and of a set of appraisal criteria that, in our view, amount to an interesting field for both the realization of the purposes of rehabilitation and reintegration of the offenders, and the humanisation of penalties in International Criminal Tribunals.
***
Some recent studies and official reports calculate that ETA’s unresolved crimes are more than 350, the majority of which date back to 1970s and 1980s and are, therefore, time barred. This article analyses the different venues that have been proposed, or that could be followed, to overcome the obstacle of the statute of limitations, shedding light on the facts and acknowledging the corresponding responsibilities. These options include: the retroactive application of the rule (incorporated in 2010) that excludes from statutory limitations those terrorist offences that have caused the death of a person; the declaration of the non-applicability of statutory limitations on the ground of labelling the facts as crimes against humanity; the examining case by cases the procedural acts that can cause a discontinuation of the running of time limitations (combined with a very broad interpretation of the conditions for naming or identify the alleged defendants); and, lastly, the investigation and settling of the facts despite admitting that the crimes are already time barred, either within the criminal law forum or by an extra-judicial body. The Author rules out the two former options, whereas she acknowledges the possibilities opened by the latter two, although pointing out the difficulties, risks and challenges that they imply.
En esta contribución se defiende, en cambio, la legitimidad de estas sanciones desde tres perspectivas diferentes: una interpretación amplia del contenido del deber internacional mencionado, una reflexión sobre los fines de la pena en los contextos transicionales y la consideración de la naturaleza y del papel del derecho penal como instrumento del Estado para garantizar la protección de los bienes jurídicos y el mantenimiento del orden social. Por último, se destaca otra novedad relevante de las llamadas sanciones propias, que insertan una perspectiva de justicia restaurativa en el marco clásicamente retributivo del derecho penal, contribuyendo a un replanteamiento de la orientación y la filosofía de la respuesta punitiva y a un mejor cumplimiento de los objetivos específicos de los contextos transicionales.
los pies de barro”. Los regímenes democráticos que han venido creándose
después del ocaso de las dictaduras a partir de los años ’80 no logran
afianzarse y están constantemente puestos a prueba por un conjunto de
problemas económicos, de criminalidad, seguridad y gobernabilidad. A
todo ello se añade la dificultad en pasar página respecto a su pasado: los
procesos de transición democrática vividos por estos Países han tenido
que enfrentarse con el problema de cómo gestionar y superar el legado de
los crímenes cometidos por los antiguos regímenes en el marco de la
represión de los movimientos insurgentes y terroristas.
El carácter masivo y sistemático que adquirieron esos crímenes
así como el hecho de que a cometerlos contribuyo una entera y compleja
maquinaria represiva estatal dificultan más aun su superación:
efectivamente, pese a tratarse de hechos pasados1, hay que reconocer que
no están superados. Los Estados tienen entonces la difícil tarea de
combinar una respuesta adecuada a los crímenes pasados, que satisfaga
las pretensiones de verdad, reparación y castigo, con la reconciliación
nacional y el afianzamiento de la convivencia social. El problema es muy
complejo y cobra una verdadera relevancia constituyente en la
construcción de las nuevas democracias (LOLLINI, 2011): por ello los
mecanismos para enfrentar y superar el legado de esos crímenesPaíses del continente, además de un objeto permanente de debate público,
en consideración de su especial relevancia en el proceso de
reestructuración de una identidad ciudadana.
En el marco de los crímenes de Estado cometidos por las pasadas
dictaduras cobra especial relevancia la figura de la desaparición forzada
de personas, respecto de la cual los Países latinoamericanos gozan – por
así decirlo – de una doble primacía. Por un lado, la desaparición forzada
como fenómeno histórico se ha manifestado con especial difusión en esta
área geográfica, donde ha sido adoptada como estrategia de lucha para la
represión de los movimientos subversivos.
Por otra parte, al considerar la desaparición forzada como
concepto jurídico-penal, los Estados latinoamericanos también han
desempeñado un papel relevante en la emersión y definición de esta
figura. Justamente sobre esta segunda vertiente pretende fijar la atención
la presente comunicación: las legislaciones y la jurisprudencia de los
Países latinoamericanos nos van a servir como papel de tornasol de los
muchos aspectos problemáticos que el delito de desaparición forzada de
personas plantea y de la necesidad de repensar y armonizar su definición.
El interés suscitado por estas cuestiones trasciende además las
fronteras de este continente, al ofrecer reflexiones y sugerencias
aplicables a fenómenos criminales análogos cometidos en otras partes del
mundo.
que tanto la pena como el proceso penal experimentan en los contextos transicionales.
El fin que mantiene validez ante lo extraordinario de la violencia colectiva y
de los contextos transicionales es la prevención positiva integradora o función comunicativa,
combinada con un fundamento retributivo. Según esta visión, la persecución
y el castigo penal, al expresar el reproche de la sociedad ante los delitos
cometidos, reafirman las normas penales y los valores jurídicos, restaurando a la
vez la confianza pública en los mismos. Esta función la cumplen tanto el proceso
penal como, de manera limitada, la pena y su ejecución, pero la eliminación de
estos últimos dos momentos no afecta la eficacia del mensaje enviado por el proceso
penal y la declaración de responsabilidad. La posibilidad, en los contextos de
transición, de explorar limitaciones o modificaciones en la intervención penal, en
la imposición de condena y/o en su ejecución se justifica con base en factores de
la realidad que, de no ser debidamente considerados, podrían producir el efecto
paradójico de convertir el Derecho penal en un obstáculo, y no en un instrumento,
para el mantenimiento del control social y la protección de los bienes jurídicos, en
la medida en que dificulta la consolidación de la paz y termina por desestabilizar el
ordenamiento que, en su conjunto, se encarga de esa protección.
***
This contribution analyses the transformation of the goals which both criminal trial
and punishment go through in transitional contexts. The rationale that is still
valid when facing extraordinary collective violence and the transitional contexts is
the communicative function, combined with a retributive foundation. Accordingly,
criminal prosecution and punishment, by expressing the blame of society, reaffirm
the criminal norms and the legal values and restore public confidence. This function
is performed by both the criminal trial and, in a more limited manner, the imposition
of sentence and its execution, although the elimination of the latter does
not impinge the efficacy of the message sent by the trial and the judgment. The
possibility, in transitional contexts, to provide for limitations or changes in prosecuting,
sentencing or executing the penalty is legitimated by practical considerations.
If these were not taken into due account, they might paradoxically turn Criminal
law into an obstacle, and not a tool anymore, for the maintenance of social control
and the protection of legal interests, by hindering the consolidation of peace and
destabilizing the legal order, which, as a whole, is in charge of that protection.
However, the so-called ʻjurisprudential cross-fertilisation’, the outcome of this dialogue, may hide certain negative aspects. The use of external references may raise concerns as to both the methodological aspects and the impact of such a dialogue within the evolution of concepts and principles.
The current paper analyses the use made by the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals (ICTs) of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and other HR bodies’ case law with regard to the definition of torture. It is a perfect case study through which to shed some light on these possible ‘shadowy sides’ of judicial cross-fertilisation.
After a description of this jurisprudence (Section II), the paper addresses the methodological issues inherent in the practice of borrowing precedents from external jurisprudence, in the contexts of the selection of sources (Section III(1)) and the interpretation thereof (Section III(2)). Secondly, it will examine whether European and HR case law actually provide reliable sources from which ICTs may borrow concepts and interpretive solutions (Section III(3)), in light of the differences between their respective frameworks.