ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some contrasting features of two aspects of human rights law and practice in Spain, and examines what they tell about human rights discourse and field of politics. Before examining in detail Spanish experience, it is worth recalling the exercise of universal jurisdiction in Belgium, which played a pioneering role in developing the concept. It was introduced by the conservative Partido Popular government and, among other modifications, provided that the exercise of universal jurisdiction must be legitimated and justified by the existence of an international treaty that provides for or authorizes it. In the case, human rights are a site of contest, of argument about what kind of society Spain should be and how it should deal with its history. An interesting way to conceptualize the transformative capacity of human rights discourse can be found in a conception of how political struggle involves an effort to allow the excluded particular to occupy the place of the universal.
