Prosecutor Arrigo’s handling of the Rudnev case is a textbook example of arbitrary interference with individual autonomy prohibited by international law.
by Michele Olzi
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” “Who watches the watchmen?” Roman poet Juvenal’s question, carried intact across two thousand years, tends to surface when institutions begin to move with the certainty of actors who no longer expect to be challenged. It drifts through history and settles in moments when public officers behave as though oversight were ceremonial. I invoke it here because it speaks directly to the impunity of prosecutors in Argentina who violate the principle of individual autonomy, as revealed in the case of Konstantin Rudnev and his alleged “victim,” Elena Makarova.
In one of his most enduring reflections, political philosopher John Stuart Mill describes the innermost nature of individual autonomy: “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” Mill identifies three essential features of autonomy. The first is absolute independence, the condition in which a person enjoys full freedom over actions and thoughts. The second is self‑ownership, the recognition that each citizen is the sovereign of their own body. The third is the harm principle, the rule that society or authority may restrict individual freedom only to prevent harm to others.
These ideas, born in Mill’s nineteenth‑century essay “On Liberty,” continue to shape the understanding of individual autonomy in the domestic law of democratic countries. Yet the concept of individual autonomy is not explicitly recognized in international law. Neither the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nor the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) mentions individual or collective autonomy in any article. Still, autonomy is present indirectly in these documents, woven into a constellation of rights that form its implicit architecture.
Some articles protect privacy, dignity, integrity, security, and freedom of expression. Others safeguard freedom from arbitrary detention, protection from inhumane and degrading treatment, and the right to a fair trial. Through these provisions, individual autonomy is affirmed indirectly, though no single article names it. International law thus acknowledges autonomy without pronouncing it, and domestic law prohibits its violation explicitly in most democratic countries.
The legal definition of such a violation is an illegal interference with the sphere of individual autonomy. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, entrusted with the authoritative interpretation of the ICCPR, has produced a substantial body of documents explaining when state interference becomes illegal. Any interference must comply with the requirements of legality, necessity, reasonableness, and proportionality.
One consequence is that the State’s duty to protect an individual cannot, by itself, justify disregarding that individual’s expressed will, beliefs, or account of her own experience. Protective intervention must remain compatible with the person’s dignity and agency. Otherwise, protection becomes a mechanism through which the State determines the individual’s identity, convictions, or status against her expressed wishes.
I have examined the case of Konstantin Rudnev in Argentina. In light of the recent reconstruction of circumstances, witnesses, and events by international scholars and experts, I believe Rudnev is innocent. Elena Makarova’s statements and the article she published in “Bitter Winter” in August 2026 illuminate the case further.
One aspect of the case is that pre‑trial detention appears to have been applied to Rudnev in a manner inconsistent with international law, as demonstrated in a study by leading international human rights attorney Alessandro Amicarelli. Another aspect, which I discuss here, is the Argentine prosecutors’ arbitrary designation of Makarova as an alleged victim of Rudnev’s “organization.” This designation also appears inconsistent with international law.
To explain why international law has been violated in the case of Makarova and Rudnev, I must first emphasize the defining features of individual autonomy and the specific dynamics of its violation. My considerations rely on the ICCPR and on decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, whose interpretation plays a significant role in the application of international norms and laws, acknowledged even outside Europe.
Article 17 of the ICCPR states: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.” This provision becomes particularly relevant when considering the case of Konstantin Rudnev and the role of the woman identified by Argentine authorities as the sole victim in the proceedings. In her “Bitter Winter” article, Makarova challenged this characterization and offered an account of events that differed substantially from the authorities’ version. She denied having been trafficked, abused, or coerced by Rudnev and even stated that she had never met him.
She further maintained that she had been pressured to recognize herself as a victim and that her refusal was interpreted by authorities as evidence of alleged “brainwashing” or “coercive control.” Her account raises a specific problem concerning the relationship between institutional protection and individual autonomy. What happens when the State defines an individual as a victim against that individual’s explicit denial of such a status?
This question acquires particular significance in light of the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 16 on Article 17. The Committee emphasizes that the protection afforded by Article 17 extends to interferences with individual autonomy originating from State authorities as well as from natural or legal persons. More importantly, the Committee distinguishes between “unlawful” and “arbitrary” interference. Both are prohibited by international law.
An interference is unlawful when it lacks a basis in law. However, interference may be arbitrary without being unlawful. An arbitrary but lawful interference is still prohibited by international law. A lawful interference may nevertheless be arbitrary. According to the Committee, arbitrariness means that even interference provided for by law may be inconsistent with the provisions, aims, and objectives of the ICCPR and unreasonable in the particular circumstances. The mere existence of a legal basis does not remove an interference from the scope of Article 17. It may still be prohibited as arbitrary.
This distinction is particularly relevant to the Rudnev case. The State possesses legal authority to intervene to protect a person it considers a victim of coercion or exploitation. However, the existence of such authority cannot settle the question of whether the resulting interference with that person’s private life is compatible with Article 17. The relevant question concerns the manner in which that authority is exercised, the factual basis upon which the intervention rests, and whether the interference is reasonable in the particular circumstances. The Human Rights Committee has repeatedly affirmed that reasonableness requires interference with privacy to be necessary and proportionate to the legitimate end pursued.
The issue is not simply whether the State has a legitimate duty to protect individuals from violence, exploitation, or coercion. It also concerns the limits of protective intervention when the State’s interpretation of an individual’s experience prevails over the individual’s own account. If a person is defined as a victim despite explicitly rejecting that definition, and if that rejection is itself interpreted as evidence of coercion or manipulation, a circular form of reasoning emerges. The denial of victimhood becomes evidence of victimization. In such circumstances, the individual’s disagreement ceases to function as a challenge to the institutional interpretation, because the disagreement itself is absorbed into the explanation of the alleged coercion.
The issue can thus be framed not as a conflict between protection and the absence of protection, but as a question concerning the limits of protective intervention within a framework of individual autonomy. Article 17 does not establish a general right to define one’s own experience or identity. Nevertheless, its protection against arbitrary interference with privacy and against unlawful attacks on honour and reputation, together with the Committee’s clarification that legally authorized interference may still be arbitrary, provides a relevant normative framework for examining situations in which public authorities impose an interpretation of an individual’s private experience.
In Rudnev’s case, Prosecutor Fernando Arrigo and his team insist that the measures taken to protect Makarova from suspected exploitation were consistent with the powers conferred upon them by law. Whether this is true is a matter for experts in Argentina’s domestic law. From the point of view of international law, however, even if one accepts that the prosecutors’ treatment of Makarova was not unlawful, a doubtful conclusion, it remains difficult to escape the finding that it was arbitrary. As noted earlier, the Human Rights Committee has clarified that interference in the sphere of individual autonomy need not be both unlawful and arbitrary to be prohibited. If it is arbitrary, it is prohibited even if lawful.
There is little doubt that Arrigo’s interference in Elena Makarova’s sphere of individual autonomy has been arbitrary. Her autonomy was grossly denied when her own reconstruction of her experience in Argentina was summarily dismissed as irrelevant or attributed to “coercive control.” Yet she emerges from interviews with scholars, from her YouTube channel, and from her article as an intelligent and articulate woman whose autonomy should be respected and protected.
From this perspective, the Rudnev case raises a broader question concerning the relationship between legal protection and self‑determination: can the State protect a person against her will to such an extent that it denies her capacity to define her own experience and to affirm that she does not consider herself a victim? More specifically, where the State’s intervention is legally authorized but the individual contests both the factual premises and the characterization upon which that intervention is based, the question under Article 17 is whether such interference remains reasonable, necessary, and compatible with the aims and objectives of the ICCPR, or whether legal protection may itself become a form of arbitrary interference with the individual’s private sphere.
In the case of Makarova, Prosecutor Arrigo’s handling of her situation appears as a textbook example of arbitrary interference with a woman’s protected sphere of individual autonomy, violating both her rights and Rudnev’s under the ICCPR.
Michele Olzi is currently teaching assistant to the chair of Political Theory and to the course of Religion and Media at the University of Insubria (Varese and Como). His interests include political theory, collective imaginaries, history of ideas, history of religions, religion & media, new religious movements, “technognosticism,” hyper-real Religions, religions and politics. He is a member of the organizing and scientific committee of the annual conference of Foro di Studi Avanzati Gaetano Massa. He edits the online journal La Rosa di Paracelso.
