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New Extradition Treaty

01 May 2003

On 31 March, David Blunkett, UK Home Secretary, signed an Extradition Treaty on behalf of the UK with his United States counterpart, Attorney General Tom Ashcroft, ostensibly bringing the US into line with procedures between European countries. The UK parliament was not consulted at all and the text was not public available until the end of May. The only justification given for the delay was "administrative reasons", though these did not hold-up scrutiny by the US senate, which began almost immediately.

The UK-US Treaty has three main effects:

(1) it removes the requirement on the US to provide prima facie evidence when requesting the extradition of people from the UK but maintains the requirement on the UK to satisfy the "probable cause" requirement in the US when seeking the extradition of US nationals;

(2) it removes or restricts key protections currently open to suspects and defendants;

(3) it implements the EU-US Treaty on extradition, signed in Washington on 25 June 2003, but far exceeds the provisions in this agreement.

The full analysis and documentation is on: www.statewatch.org/news/2003/jul/25ukus.htm