Twenty-six years after democracy fell in their country, a group of Chilean exiles informed Spanish magistrate Balthazar Garzón that General Augusto Pinochet was visiting London. Garzón immediately issued a extradition request to the British government to interrogate Pinochet for human rights crimes against Spanish citizens during the years when he was Chile's ruler (Lutz and Sikkink 2001b: 12). The decision electrified supporters of human rights around the world and was a beacon in their hope for the development of a law of universal jurisdiction (Lutz and Sikkink 2001a; also see Davis 2003).

Although British Home Secretary Jack Straw ultimately allowed Pinochet to return home, the events in Madrid and London set off what Ellen Lutz and Kathryn Sikkink (2001a and b) call “a justice cascade.” In Argentina, an infamous torturer, Carlos Guillermo Suarez Mason, who had escaped prosecution for years, was arrested for the theft of children of Argentina's disappeared (2001b: 20–1). In Mexico, authorities arrested retired Argentine navy captain Miguel Cavallo as the plane on which he was traveling to Buenos Aires stopped to refuel in Cancun. In Italy, magistrates advanced a criminal case that had been languishing for years against Suarez Mason, Omar Santiago Riveros, and five other Argentine officers for the murder of eight Argentines of Italian descent (p. 23). Rome was also where another Argentine former officer, Jorge Olivera, was arrested in August 2000 while celebrating his wedding anniversary (p. 23).