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Eichmann & the Question of Jurisdiction
- Abstract
THE recent capture of Adolf Eichmann has raised a good many questions in the public mind, some of them involving what might be called matters of policy and others touching on issues of international law. In this article, I propose to examine only the question of whether Israel can, under international law, rightfully claim jurisdiction in the case, and to omit all consideration of the policy aspects-for example, the question of whether, instead of holding him for trial, it would be wiser for Israel to return Eichmann to Argentina, or perhaps surrender him to the West German authorities (assuming they were willing to accept jurisdiction). I shall also omit discussing the manner of Eichmann’s capture. The fact that Eichmann may have been forcibly removed from Argentina by Israeli agents has by itself no bearing on Israel’s right to bring him to trial. There is nothing in international penal law which would deny jurisdiction to a state because regular extradition procedures were not followed or because, in “hot pursuit” of a wrongdoer, the domestic law of a country was violated. Whether or not Israel would have been wiser to follow such procedures is again a question of policy. (Here, however, one might observe that repeated UN appeals to all nations for the surrender of war criminals residing therein have remained unheeded by Argentina. In addition, the experience with regular extradition procedures where Argentina is concerned has proved most discouraging, as with Karl Klingenfuss and Dr. Josef Mengele, who have still not been returned to West Germany despite a series of requests from the Bonn government.)
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