13/02/2026
As ambassador for the Foundation, I invite you to participate when this highly topical issue is discussed.
SEMINAR IN LONDON: UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION AND THE FUTURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY
The Edelstam Foundation is honored to co-partner with HR Solidarity, the Embassy of Chile to the United Kingdom, International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute and The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights for an up-coming seminar in London.
Universal jurisdiction – the principle allowing national courts to prosecute international crimes regardless of where or by whom they were committed – remains one of the most powerful tools to challenge impunity. This seminar revisits landmark cases, including the prosecution of Chile’s former dictator General Pinochet, and explores how international justice can respond to ongoing atrocities worldwide.
Speakers include:
· H.E. Ambassador Ximena Fuentes, Ambassador of Chile to the United Kingdom.
· Caroline Edelstam, President of the Edelstam Foundation, granddaughter of Ambassador Harald Edelstam, who saved over a thousand lives during and after the coup in Chile.
· Prof. Johan Vande Lanotte, former Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and expert in transitional justice and human rights; initiator of the Turkey Tribunal held in Geneva in 2021.
· Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, British barrister and Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.
· Dr. Carlos Castresana Fernández, former prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Spain and author of the initial lawsuits in 1996 that allowed Pinochet to be brought to justice before the Spanish Audiencia Nacional and then the House of Lords; and former Head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.
· Judith Abitan and Susanne Berger, international human rights advocates from the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR).
· Prof. Philippe Sands, Professor of Law, University College London, and Barrister, 11 Kings Bench Walk; author of 38 Londres Street, on the 1998 Pinochet proceedings, for which he was counsel for Human Rights Watch and then Belgium.
· Burak Batuhan Karakus, human rights lawyer and Executive Director of Human Rights Solidarity, moderator of the panel discussion.