Chehtman: Strategic Approaches to Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in Latin America

Alejandro Chehtman (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella - Law) has posted Strategic Approaches to Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in Latin America (in Extraterritoriality in International Law, A. Parrish & C. Ryngaert eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter examines the main attitudes towards extraterritoriality in Latin America. It seeks to clarify and critically assess legal and doctrinal developments as well as political attitudes towards extraterritoriality in a distinct part of the world. It argues that it is possible to identify a general, prevailing attitude towards extraterritorial jurisdiction in Latin America. This attitude is characterized by an attempt to maximize the capacity of national authorities for autonomous action by diligently adopting certain legal reforms, including the extension of states’ laws extraterritorially over certain offences, and the conclusion of extradition treaties. However, it further shows that national authorities have largely modulated the concrete application of these provisions in line with the prevailing interests, self-perception, and political sensibilities of the Latin American (creole) elites. These elites have generally shown little appetite for prosecuting crimes extraterritorially, and in the few cases such appetite existed, geo-political considerations have contributed to undermining effective prosecutions. At the same time, domestic authorities have supported, or at least accepted, foreign extraterritorial prosecutions against local threats or groups that seek to challenge the hegemony of local elites, profiting from the US’ agenda in the region, while they have adopted a cautious, non-confrontational approach to resisting US extraterritorial prosecutions in situations Latin American elites preferred to handle in their own terms.