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I. INTRODUCTION
On 26 November 2018, Human Rights Watch filed a submission with the Argentinian prosecutors, calling for criminal investigations and charges against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who was expected to attend the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires. The human rights NGO highlighted Bin Salman's alleged complicity in war crimes in Yemen and in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist killed in Istanbul's Saudi consulate in October 2018. On 28 November, the Argentinean judiciary opened an investigation against the Saudi leader. Mohammed Bin Salman attended the summit, engaged in discussions with other world leaders, and left Argentina on 2 December. He was not arrested but had to spend the nights at the Buenos Aires's Saudi embassy, instead of in a hotel with his delegation.
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In recent years, the use of human rights to trigger the application of criminal law has proliferated around the world at the international, regional, and domestic levels. This process transcends national borders not only because of the places where proceedings are held, the nationality of the victims and offenders, and the location of the wrongdoings, but also because of the widespread belief that the universal conception of human rights mandates criminal accountability, regardless of the context, implications, and practicability. The case of Mohammed Bin Salman is emblematic, because it involves human rights violations committed in Yemen and Turkey, the alleged implication of Saudi nationals, a victim who was resident in the United States (US), and a complaint filed by an international NGO with Argentinean prosecutors. In addition, this submission was highly symbolic, since the likelihood that the Saudi crown prince would be arrested, prosecuted, and punished in Argentina was quite low. Nonetheless, as Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth explained, human rights require "a clear message" to be sent, that the international community is committed to criminal accountability for serious wrongdoings.1 This example illustrates how it has become normal in international, regional, and domestic law to ask that perpetrators of human rights violations are held criminally accountable.2
This article provides a historical account of the role of human rights as drivers of penality.3 It explores how, since the late 1970s, domestic, regional and international courts, policymakers, and civil society have...