NCJ Number
224821
Date Published
2007
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This paper addresses the importance of the extradition process among nations in ensuring that international terrorists are denied legal sanctuary and swiftly brought to trial in the jurisdictions where their crimes were committed.
Abstract
Most international law enforcement and other criminal justice efforts are intended to identify, locate, and prosecute individual terrorists who have committed crimes in various jurisdictions throughout the world. Extradition from a country where the terrorist has been found to the country or countries where his/her crimes were committed is essential for ensuring that justice is achieved. Although international laws and extradition conventions are important instruments for implementing international cooperation in counterterrorism, this paper argues that the practice and sincerity of the states in fighting terrorism is far more important. Legal instruments are only effective when they are enforced by government officials committed to fulfilling the instruments’ objectives. A truly global response to terrorism can only be achieved when states act sincerely and consistently in accordance with the instruments of international law and common standards of morality and views of criminality. The new European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is an example of how the member states of the European Union are reducing barriers to addressing transnational crimes and criminals. For certain crimes, the EAW involves the mutual recognition among member states of court judgments that involve the issuing of arrest warrants. This change suggests that each state should think about revising its domestic law to remove the barriers that cause difficulties in extradition procedures. In facilitating this process, some international organizations should be enabled to impose sanctions on those states that violate extradition conventions or disregard their entrenched barriers to extradition. 1 tables and 41 references