Victims of mass atrocities from around the globe have turned to Spain's National Court of Justice throughout the past decade. But Madrid is likely to limit a generous law which allows its judges to investigate alleged human rights abuses in other countries.

Spain is one of a few countries that embraces the principle of universal jurisdiction. Since 1985, Spanish criminal law has allowed the National Court, or Audiencia Nacional, to reach beyond national borders in cases of serious human rights abuses, even if there are no Spanish victims.

Spanish judges have used the doctrine in recent years to try to seek prosecution in atrocities cases from Tibet to Rwanda. Judge Balthasar Garzon rose to fame when he ordered the arrest of Chile's former despot Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998. From that moment, serious human rights abusers were aware that they could no longer rely on global impunity.

The National Court now has 13 cases open involving genocide or crimes against humanity involving eight countries, including China, Israel and the US.

Diplomacy
But Spain's generous law is turning into a problem. Recent cases have brought Madrid under foreign pressure to alter its international justice policy.

Israel has stepped up its pressure when a Spanish judge recently decided to probe alleged crimes against humanity by top Israeli military figures over a bombing in Gaza in 2002. Jerusalem says Spain should mind its own business as it had already ordered an investigation into the bombing which killed 15 civilians.

 
Beijing has also warned the Spanish government not to meddle in China's internal affairs after a Spanish judge announced he wants to question eight Chinese leaders over genocide accusations.

In addition, the US has shown concern when Judge Garzon considered whether Spain should allow charges to be filed against six former officials of the George W. Bush administration for offering justifications for torture.

Reform
Spanish investigations have resulted in only one conviction. Adolfo Scilingo, a former Argentine naval captain, was found guilty of crimes against humanity in 2005 for pushing 30 drugged and bound prisoners out of government airplanes in the 1970s.

But although Spain's universal justice policy has had little effect, with extraditions extremely rare and only one conviction, legislators voted in favour of a resolution calling for an urgent reform last month.

 
Saying that Spain cannot become the judicial police of the world, the resolution recommends that universal justice should only apply to cases with a genuine Spanish link.

Human rights groups are urging Madrid to drop the plans because they think it sends a strong signal to serious rights abusers when they decide to travel through Europe.

 
But the Spanish government will most likely agree to the legal reform, much like Belgium did six years ago. Under pressure from the United States and Israel, Brussels in 2003 altered a decade-old law of universal jurisdiction which was similar to the one in Spain.

 
When the broadest universal justice policy is restricted, the only remaining place for victims of mass atrocities to turn to is the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. But its prosecutor's mandate is not as far reaching as that of his Spanish colleagues. He can only investigate cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity when nations or the UN Security Council ask the court to do so.