The Pinochet Case

Scholarly treatments of the issues at play in the Pinochet affair are only beginning to emerge, and — given the significance of the issues — there is clearly a need for sustained and rigorous research. The present paper is intended to provide a synthesis of events so far and some tentative pointers for further work. In form it is divided into two parts. The first is an essay which attempts both to explain the origins and progress of the Pinochet case and then to offer an initial, and brief, review of some of the issues raised and their potential implications. The second part is in the form of a detailed chronology of the case since Pinochet's arrest, compiled primarily from press sources, but also drawing on scholarly research. This is intended to provide both the factual detail and chronological narrative absent from the essay.