Another Extradition Play to the Gallery

Assessing the New Legislation on Extradition, with Andrew Southam, The Commentator, July 2, 2013. "Campaigners have long argued that Britain should have a “forum bar” that would limit the extradition of individuals from Britain to other jurisdictions. In April, they got their wish. The Crime and Courts Act introducing the forum bar, with other measures, received Royal Assent on 25th April 2013. The issue now is whether these measures improve the effectiveness of Britain’s extradition arrangements, including those with the United States, or whether they are a misguided attempt to play to the public gallery."

Another Reason for Britain to Leave the ECHR

European Court Errs in Decision on Terrorist Suspect Extradition, with Andrew Robert James Southam, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3930, May 7, 2013. "The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has given an interim ruling that Britain cannot extradite Haroon Aswat to the United States. Aswat has been indicted in the U.S. on conspiracy charges related to the establishment of a terrorist training camp for radical Islamists in Bly, Oregon in 1999. By this decision, the ECHR, unless its decision is overturned, will have done significant damage to the Anglo-American extradition system, and to the ability of both sovereign nations to try and punish serious offenses, including terrorism."

What New CPS Guidelines Tell Us About the UK Forum Bar

Extradition: CPS Guidelines & The Paradoxical Forum Bar, with Andrew Southam, The Commentator, November 15, 2012. "In late October, the Crown Prosecution Service, in a step that attracted little public attention, issued new, enforceable guidelines on how to prosecute alleged extradition crimes. The guidelines are interesting partly because they reinforce both modern extradition practice and longstanding tradition."

Dispelling Mythologies About US-UK Extradition

The McKinnon Case and the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 18, 2012. "On Tuesday, British Home Secretary Theresa May announced in the House of Commons that Gary McKinnon, who has acknowledged hacking into U.S. government computers, would not be extradited to the U.S. because he was mentally ill, and extradition would therefore violate his human rights."

Extradition By The Numbers

The Numbers Behind the Extradition Controversy, with Andrew Southam, The Commentator, October 15, 2012. "But if you want to talk about numbers, consider this: the ratio between U.S. and U.K. extradition requests is not going up. It is going down. Since 2003, U.S. requests have outnumbered British ones by over two to one (130 to 54). By comparison, between 1964 and 1994, the U.S. filed almost three times as many extradition requests (301) in Britain as Britain (108) did in the U.S."

The O'Dwyer Extradition Case

Why It Is Fair to Extradite Yorkshire Web Piracy Suspect, Yorkshire Post, September 20, 2012. "I do not expect that a defense of Richard O’Dwyer’s extradition will be popular. But I do believe that the extradition arrangements between Britain and the U.S. are fair, and that O’Dwyer’s case illustrates why."

Defending the US-UK Extradition Treaty

Why the US-UK Extradition Treaty is Good Law, ConHome, September 17, 2012. "Hard cases make bad law, the saying goes, and some of the cases that have attracted British attention – and condemnation -- to the 2003 Extradition Treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain are indeed hard. But not all of them are. Indeed, most extraditions from Britain to the U.S. – and all of them from the U.S. to Britain – excite no public controversy at all. The Treaty deserves more than to be condemned by anecdote; it deserves to be examined on its merits."

Defending the US-UK Extradition Treaty

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty: Fair, Balanced, and Worth Defending, with Andrew Robert James Southam, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2723, September 4, 2012. "The 2003 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Great Britain is intensely controversial in the United Kingdom. The treaty resulted from a British process and is a modern and praiseworthy approach to extradition that is based on an objective evidentiary test, requires dual criminality in all cases, and has a proportionality standard. The European Union’s European Arrest Warrant does not have these virtues and therefore urgently needs reform, as does Britain’s participation in the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Extradition and acceptance of the jurisdiction of the supranational European Court of Human Rights. While Anglo–American cooperation on the treaty and on extradition and international criminal justice can be improved, the 2003 U.S.–U.K. Extradition Treaty is fair, balanced, and worth defending."

The Tappin Case, Round Two

Answers to Questions on the Tappin Extradition Case, The Commentator, March 22, 2012. "A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on extradition from the United Kingdom to the U.S., inspired by the furor over the case of Christopher Tappin. The gist of the article was that the U.K. wanted the 2003 U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty and the accompanying and broader Extradition Act of 2003, that the claims made about the unfairness of the Treaty are false, and that Ministers in Her Majesty’s Government should have the courage to say so. These are not popular views, in large part because they are rarely if ever expressed in Britain. So in the spirit of encouraging debate, I’ll return to the question, and present some new documents that critics of the Tappin case should read."

The Tappin Extradition Case

A Few Home Truths About Extradition from the United Kingdom, The Commentator, March 2, 2012. "As Mr. Grieve has conceded in one of his more sensible reflections, the Tappin case is controversial because Mr. Tappin appears to be an eminently respectable man. Unfortunately, it is possible for a man to appear to be respectable, and even to be the President of the Kent Golf Union, and still to be creditably accused of a serious crime. If Mr. Tappin is found innocent, there will be no public outcry in the U.S. But if the U.S. trial proceeds fairly – as I believe it will – and especially if he is found guilty, I trust there will be public and government recognition in Britain that the critics were wrong, and that the extradition system – and the American system – works."

Defending the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty

Tensions Ahead Over U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, April 11, 2011. "It’s a common-sense idea that criminals should not be able to escape justice in one country simply by fleeing to another. In this Internet age, it’s also common sense that citizens of one country should not be able commit crimes electronically in another without fear of punishment. This is the problem that extradition is intended to solve."

Labour Got What It Wanted In US-UK Extradition Treaty

Don’t Blame US for This ‘Wretched’ Treaty Saga, Yorkshire Post, September 29, 2010. "The simple fact is that Labour thought extradition from Britain was too hard. It acted, domestically and internationally, to make it easier, both for the EU and for many countries, including the United States. The Left thought this was a brilliant idea. Now everyone is shocked that extradition from Britain is easier. But that was the point of the exercise. Only one thing has not changed: the US still gets most of the blame."

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty: In the Interest of Both Nations, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2456, August 30, 2010. "Extradition treaties serve an essential function in cases that cross international borders. When the United States delayed ratification of the 2003 extradition treaty between the United States and Great Britain, the delay was heavily criticized in Britain. More recently, the ratified treaty has come under intense criticism in Britain. But the perceived problems are not inherent in the treaty or the fault of the U.S.; they stem from the fact that the past Labour government deliberately set out to make it easier, both bilaterally and through use of the European arrest warrants (EAWs), for foreign nations to extradite individuals from Britain. At the same time, Britain’s acceptance of EU judicial supremacy and the consequent erosion of British sovereignty mean that it is now harder to extradite a terrorist than it is to extradite individuals accused of less serious offenses. The new British government should defend British liberties and put an end to privileges for accused terrorists by asserting its sovereignty and creating a “reasonable basis” minimum standard for all extraditions—a standard that, though incompatible with the EAWs, is compatible with the 2003 treaty."