FILE - Demonstrators holds cardboard posters showing images of family and friends killed during anti-government protests, in Caracas, Venezuela, March 18, 2014. An Argentine federal court in Buenos Aires on June 28, 2024, concluded testimony from Venezuelan victims as part of an investigation into probable human rights abuses allegedly committed by security forces during the 2014 clampdown on mass anti-government protests.
“Those testifying are people who have sought justice in Venezuela for a very long time, and have reached the end of where they can go,” said Yasmine Chubin, a legal advocate at the Clooney Foundation, a nonprofit founded by George and Amal Clooney that provides free legal support to victims of human rights abuses. “They’re continuing to fight to hold those responsible to account, and that led to us filing this case.
The foundation said it chose to file its case — complete with 15,000 pages of documentation — in Argentina because of the country’s proximity to Venezuela, its large community of Venezuelan immigrants, and its broad interpretation of universal jurisdiction, a product of its 1983 transition to democracy
There’s no saying how long the process might take, but lawyers say they’re encouraged by the speed with which Argentina decided to launch its investigation — just one month after the foundation filed its complaint. While the case is unlikely to produce arrests“Depending on the situation with universal jurisdiction, you might be looking for symbolic results. That’s not our case,” said Ignacio Jovtis, senior program manager at the Clooney Foundation for Justice.