Extradition

Joanna Harrington is Associate Professor of Law, University of Alberta, Canada. Her Phd obtained from the University of Cambridge dealt with extradition and human rights. From 2006-2008, she was on secondment to the Legal Affairs Bureau of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In that capacity, she, among other things, was a member of the Canadian delegation to the UN General Assembly for meetings of the Sixth (Legal) Committee dealing with the work of the International Law Commission. Dapo's post on the case in the ICJ between Belgium and Senegal highlights the real issue in the case, which is this question of whether international law “obliges” prosecution. One aspect of the ILC’s recent work on “Extradite or prosecute” that has attracted my own interest is the Special Rapporteur’s description of this obligation as a choice, an “either/or” option for States, thus equating “extradite or prosecute” with “prosecute or extradite” (the latter being the “obligation” now invoked by Belgium). In the very treaties that the Special Rapporteur…