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Originally Posted by Camille
In the UK, we don't have extradition rights with the US...but the US has them with the UK.
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Not quite sure what you mean by this. The US and UK have had reciprocity on extradition for many, many years. We actually just signed and ratified a new version of the extradition treaty a few years ago to make the US-UK practice conform to the general US-EU extradition treaty. The US and UK exchange suspects all the time. People go both ways.
Was there a particular case that you heard about?
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By that I mean, if PJ (for example) came to London and killed someone and then hopped on a plane to the US, the UK is entirely at the mercy of the US as to whether you decided to send him back to us for trial etc. We have no extradition agreement. If I killed someone here, ran off back to the UK, I am bound by the extradition agreement of the US to return.
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Actually, I think it's the other way around.
Under a principle of international law know as double criminality plus a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights the UK can no longer extradite suspects to the US if they would face the death penalty here. It is possible for the US to waive application of the death penalty and get the extradition completed, but in principle you can't extradite anyone from any EU member country into the US if they have committed a capital crime.
No such restriction - at least none that I'm aware of - forbids the extradition of suspects from the US into the UK or any other EU state.
As for general opinions on the US extradition system . . . well . . . it's really messed up.
The unique legal environment in the US makes enforcement of international law and treaties very, very problematic. We routinely end up ignoring the terms of treaties and other instruments of international law because there are loopholes in our own internal system that prevent people from challenging US government actions that violate those agreements.
I actually worked on such a case years ago where the suspect was illegally extradited from Pakistan. Everybody - including the US government - agreed that the extradition was improper. Didn't matter though. The government argued and won on the theory that there was no provision under US law that would allow a suspect to challenge the extradition. The client was convicted, sentenced to death and ultimately executed. In the end the US government just did what it felt like doing without worrying about minor details like international treaty obligations.
The EU, on the other hand, does pay attention to such things. Witness the prolonged saga of Roman Polanski. He's been able to hang out in France for decades because the French refuse to extradite a French national except in the most extreme circumstances and because his crime was subject to certain technical issues under international law that made extradition from France impossible. It was only when he hopped over to Switzerland - which is more sensitive to international issues than the French - that Polanski was grabbed and held for proceedings.
In the end, therefore, I'd say your argument was both correct and a little backwards. The US tends to be much more responsive to handing over people than most other countries are. At the same time, we are particularly ruthless when we decide to drag somebody over here. The EU and most other countries take a more balanced approach.
Cheers,
Mazo.
(Why) is this effective?
