See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/339354146

Defending Core Values: Human Rights and the Extradition of Fugitives

Article in Journal of Peace Research · February 2020

DOI: 10.1177/0022343319898231

CITATIONS READS
7 248

2 authors:

Abraham L. Newman Asif Efrat

Georgetown University Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya
76 PUBLICATIONS 2,842 CITATIONS 41 PUBLICATIONS 316 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Asif Efrat on 19 February 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Defending core values:
Human rights and the extradition of fugitives

Asif Efrat
Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya

Abraham L Newman
Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Journal of Peace Research

Abstract:

Are states willing to overlook human rights violations to reap the fruits of international cooperation?
Existing research suggests that this is often the case: Security, diplomatic, or commercial gains may
trump human rights abuse by partners. We argue, however, that criminal-justice cooperation might be
obstructed when it undermines core values of individual freedoms and human rights, since the breach
of these values exposes the cooperating state to domestic political resistance and backlash. To test our
argument, we examine extradition: a critical tool for enforcing criminal laws across borders, but one
that potentially threatens the rights of surrendered persons, who could face physical abuse, unfair trial,
or excessive punishment by the foreign legal system. We find support for our theoretical expectation
through statistical analysis of the surrender of fugitives within the European Union as well as
surrenders to the United States: greater respect for human rights correlates with the surrender of fewer
persons. A case study of Britain confirms that human-rights concerns may affect the willingness to
extradite. Our findings have important implications for debates on the relationship between human
rights and foreign policy as well as the fight against transnational crime.

Keywords: extradition, criminal justice, human rights, European Union, United States

Corresponding author: asif@idc.ac.il

Introduction

Are states willing to compromise their commitment to human rights for the sake of international

cooperation? Scholars have often answered this question in the affirmative, suggesting that political

and economic interests tend to take precedence over human rights. In order to reap diplomatic or

commercial gain, governments might overlook the human-rights violations of their partners. For

example, several studies suggest that human rights exert a limited effect, if any, on arms transfers

and the allocation of foreign aid (Neumayer, 2003; Carey, 2007; Lebovic & Voeten, 2009; Erickson,

2011; Schulze, Pamp & Thurner, 2017).

This article examines the impact of human rights on cooperation in an area that has received

little attention from IR scholars: criminal justice. Cooperation among states in the investigation,

prosecution and punishment of crimes goes back centuries but has increased in importance in the

current era: ‘Bad’ actors – from organized crime syndicates, through human and drug traffickers, to

transnational terrorists – take advantage of globalization to commit crimes (Andreas & Nadelmann,

2006). To curb cross-border crime, states assist each other in implementing and enforcing their

domestic criminal laws. Such cooperation ranges from the sharing of evidence (known as ‘mutual

legal assistance’) and the extradition of criminal suspects to the transfer of criminal proceedings and

the freezing or seizure of assets (UNODC, 2009; Efrat & Newman, 2017).

From a functionalist perspective, criminal-justice cooperation can easily appear efficient, as it

helps to prevent or punish crime. In this article, we develop an alternative account that explains why

states may refuse to cooperate against crime. We argue that an important cause for such reluctance

rests in concerns that the cooperative endeavor might undermine core societal values. The core

values that criminal-justice cooperation impinges on include individual freedoms and human rights

as well as legal fairness. States more committed to these values are less likely to cooperate for fear of

breaching them. Such a breach might expose the cooperating state to domestic political resistance

and backlash due to the undermining of fundamental normative principles.

2
 To test this argument, we examine the extradition of wanted persons: a central feature of

international criminal cooperation. Extradition is the surrender by a state (the requested state) of a

person present in its territory to another state (the requesting state) that seeks that person either to

prosecute them or to enforce a sentence already handed down by its courts (UNODC, 2009: 143).

While the mechanism of extradition has a long history, its use has grown in this era of burgeoning

transnational crime, with thousands of requests made annually worldwide covering a broad array of

crimes: from terrorism and drug trafficking through homicide to robbery and fraud (Nadelmann,

1993; Pyle, 2001). Extradition stands on the principle ‘that it is in the interest of all civilized

communities that offenders should not be allowed to escape justice by crossing national borders and

that States should facilitate the punishment of criminal conduct’ (Home Office, 2011: 20).

While a crucial tool for fighting crime, extradition potentially threatens the rights of

surrendered persons, who could face physical abuse, unfair trial, or excessive punishment by the

foreign legal system. To assess whether such human-rights concerns carry weight and, in fact,

constrain the extradition process, we examine extradition patterns within the European Union under

the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). To verify the generalizability of our findings, we analyze data

on the extradition of suspected criminals to the United States. Narrative evidence of the recent

British debate on extradition policy sheds additional light on the causal mechanism. Our findings

across the different types of evidence point to a strong relationship between core values and

international criminal cooperation: countries that exhibit greater respect for human rights tend to

extradite fewer individuals.

Our findings advance the literature on the international effects of domestic legal systems and

norms. Existing research tends to focus on how domestic norms influence treaty behavior or

cooperation with international courts (Mitchell & Powell, 2011). We, however, turn attention to how

differences in domestic norms shape actual patterns of cooperation against crime. Our argument and

findings also offer tangible evidence of the impact of human rights on foreign policy and

3
international cooperation. While in various areas governments appear willing to trade human-rights

respect for the benefits of cooperation, such compromise turns out to be harder in the area of criminal

justice. In this context, at least, the commitment to human rights appears to be an actual constraint on

cooperation rather than lip service (Hafner-Burton, 2005; Tomz & Weeks, forthcoming).

International criminal cooperation and extradition

States seeking to combat crimes are often hamstrung by their transnational nature. As criminals and

crimes transcend traditional notions of territorial jurisdiction, police and prosecutors increasingly

find evidence and suspects scattered or hidden across borders (UNODC, 2010). Without international

cooperative action, the rule of law might be hollowed out. Responding to this challenge,

governments employ mechanisms for international criminal cooperation. These mechanisms address

the different elements of the criminal-justice process: from the gathering of evidence through the

criminal prosecution and trial to the punishment (UNODC, 2012).

Extradition is perhaps the best-known of those mechanisms, and it plays a key role in the

suppression of transnational crime (Nadelmann, 1993; Magnuson, 2011). Extradition is the formal

legal process by which persons accused or convicted of crime are surrendered from one state to

another for prosecution or punishment. While comprehensive global statistics concerning extradition

are unavailable, a UN survey of 35 countries found some three thousand extradition requests made in

2012 (UN, 2014: 27), excluding those processed through the EU extradition scheme: the European

Arrest Warrant. During the period 2005-2011, nearly 80,000 extradition requests were made among

EU members through the EAW (Carrera, Guild & Hernanz, 2013).

Policymakers worldwide consider extradition a vital tool in confronting criminality, and it

has played a particularly central role in the American fight against organized crime and drug

trafficking. Since the 1970s, the United States has filed an increasing number of extradition requests

(Nadelmann, 1993: 817-818). As a result, drug traffickers and kingpins from Colombia, Mexico, and

4
other countries ended up in a US courtroom. Perhaps the most infamous of these is Joaquin “El

Chapo” Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. One of the richest men in Mexico and among the

leading drug lords globally, El Chapo was first extradited from Guatemala to Mexico in 1993. After

a series of prison escapes and manhunts, Mexico extradited him to the United States in January 2017,

and a New York court convicted him in February 2019.

In addition to the wide use of extradition to counter narcotics trafficking, it has become

essential for government efforts to prosecute international terrorists’ networks (Finnegan, 2017).

Anti-terrorism treaties – such as the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist

Bombings and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism –

require states to prosecute or extradite those who engage in terrorism.1

Extradition and the defense of core values

If extradition serves as a valuable tool of international cooperation for fighting crime and terrorism,

will governments let human rights stand in the way? In this section, we develop an argument

emphasizing the ways in which domestic norms, particularly those associated with human rights and

physical integrity, may shape a state’s willingness to extradite individuals. Since extradition

potentially puts the human rights of the extradited person at risk, states concerned for such rights will

be more reluctant to extradite: extradition might legitimize conduct that runs contrary to their values

and make them complicit in human rights violations. Furthermore, extradition might bring these

states under criticism for failure to uphold fundamental norms.

Our argument builds on a growing literature which stresses the importance of domestic legal

practices and norms for international cooperation. Work on legal traditions, for example, has found

that differences between the common law, civil law, and Islamic law influence states’ attitude toward

international courts. Such work emphasizes the fit between domestic legal practice and global legal

practice – for example, in terms of the status of precedent or contract fulfillment (Mitchell & Powell,

5
2011). Similarly, Kelley (2007) argues that states with a high level of domestic rule of law are less

likely to breach their commitments to the International Criminal Court: these states’ normative

dislike for breaking commitments – and fear of the domestic consequences of breaking commitments

– pushes them to honor their pledge to the ICC. In a similar vein, Putnam (2016) finds that US courts

are more willing to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction when core legal values, such as those

embodied in the US constitution, are at stake. Finally, Efrat & Newman (2016) demonstrate that

national rules and norms concerned with substantive and procedural fairness influence a state’s

willingness to defer to a foreign legal system.

This body of work demonstrates that international cooperation in legal matters often runs up

against domestic norms. States that engage in such cooperative efforts face the risk that foreign legal

systems may be based on values that are distinct from or contradictory to one’s own. And these

tensions are particularly acute in criminal-justice cooperation, where foreign systems may hold

different conceptions of fundamental notions such as due process, fair trial, or excessive punishment.

International criminal cooperation between legal systems with different values could therefore

become challenging both personally and politically. At the personal level, law-enforcement agencies

and judicial actors might find themselves involved in conduct that runs contrary to their values and

beliefs and is an anathema to their mission, resulting in cognitive dissonance (Kelley, 2007: 577).

Politically, governments open themselves up for attack when they engage in international criminal

cooperation with states that do not respect core values. Political opponents, NGOs, the media, and

other critics may charge that the government cooperates with an unfair or abusive legal system –

harming the individuals involved in the legal process, and also tarnishing and diminishing domestic

norms and standards (Chase & Fife, 2016; Lennox, 2017). At the same time, the violation of core

values reinforces the sovereignty-concerns surrounding international criminal cooperation.

Opponents may blame the government for undermining national sovereignty by abdicating the

authority of the national legal system in favor of a foreign one that fails to uphold fundamental

6
norms. Indeed, survey experiments conducted by Tomz & Weeks (forthcoming) demonstrate that

citizens in democracies are much more willing to attack a country that violates human rights than a

country that respects them.

Which core values does extradition threaten? As extradition subjects the requested person to

criminal trial or punishment by a foreign legal system, we may broadly distinguish between three

sets of concerns involving fundamental human rights (Dugard & Van den Wyngaert, 1998; Sadoff,

2016).

A common concern is that the extradited person might experience torture or another kind of

abusive treatment, such as harsh interrogation techniques, corporal punishment, or poor detention

conditions (Sharfstein, 2001). In its 1989 landmark decision in the case of Soering,2 the European

Court of Human Rights ruled that the extradition of a fugitive who would be put on death row in the

United States, taking into account the conditions and length of detention prior to execution,

constituted inhuman or degrading treatment, in violation of the European Convention on Human

Rights’ Article 3.

Another concern is that the extradited person would not receive a fair trial. The UN Model

Treaty on Extradition, for example, requires the extradition-requesting state to provide minimum

guarantees in criminal proceedings, as stipulated by the International Covenant on Civil and Political

Rights. These include, among others, ‘a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and

impartial tribunal established by law’; presumption of innocence; adequate time and facilities for the

preparation of one’s defense; a trial without undue delay; not to be compelled to testify against

oneself or to confess guilt; and a right to appeal the conviction and sentence.3 Also in the category of

unfair trials are cases in which the requesting state’s court might discriminate against the requested

person or prejudge them on the basis of their race, nationality, or other factors.

The third set of concerns revolves around the excessive nature of the punishment. Most

countries of the world have abolished the death penalty; and they tend to include provisions in their

7
domestic legislation, as well as in international agreements they negotiate, to bar extradition to

countries where the death penalty might be imposed – unless the requesting state provides assurances

that such punishment will not be implemented.4 Some countries also consider life sentence as an

excessive punishment that would block extradition.5

Obviously, concerns about physical abuse, unfair trial, or excessive punishment might arise

when the extradition-requesting country is an autocracy with a poor human rights record. Extradition

to China, unsurprisingly, could meet serious resistance (Efrat & Tomasina, 2018). But it is important

to note that extradition raises concerns even when the requesting country is a democracy that is

generally committed to human rights, and even when the crime in question is ordinary and not a

particularly heinous one. Even in democracies, the legal system might be prone to bias and

discrimination; it could suffer long delays that undermine the fairness of the trial; prison conditions

might be poor; and defendants might come under pressure to confess their guilt (Stuntz, 2011; Fair

Trials, 2017).

But to what extent do human-rights concerns actually influence extradition practice? Such

concerns had, in fact, been alien to the traditional paradigm of extradition, which focused on states’

shared interest in fighting crime and on the maintaining of friendly international relations based on

respect for state sovereignty. Blocking extradition on human-rights grounds would, of course, disrupt

the good relations between states and their joint efforts against crime. Extradition arrangements have

therefore given modest weight to the rights of the wanted person. Instead, they sought to secure the

interests of states and their ability to cooperate. Yet the traditional model of extradition has been

modified over the past three decades. It is the European Court of Human Rights’ aforementioned

decision in the case of Soering (1989) that is heralded as the human-rights turn for extradition

(Dugard & Van den Wyngaert, 1998). Following Soering, human rights concerns have received

growing emphasis in extradition agreements, legislation, and case law. The Charter of Fundamental

Rights of the European Union, for example, prohibits extradition if there is a serious risk that the

8
person ‘would be subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or

punishment.’6 The UN Model Treaty on Extradition includes a similar prohibition.7 Various

countries have incorporated human-rights safeguards in their extradition legislation.8 Drawing on

legislative provisions, constitutional safeguards, or general notions of fairness and justice, courts in

various countries have considered human rights claims in extradition proceedings.9

While states seem to be paying greater attention to human rights in extradition as a matter of

official policy, this does not necessarily mean that human rights affect the practice of extradition.

Indeed, one can dismiss this seeming attention as cheap talk (Pyle, 2001; Posner, 2014). States may

establish mechanisms to refuse extradition on human-rights grounds, but they may also set a high

threshold for refusal, rendering these mechanisms ineffective. In other words, states’ actual conduct

may still be prioritizing cooperation against crime and friendly international relations over human

rights. By setting a high bar for human-rights considerations, governments can avoid the diplomatic

tensions that come with the refusal of extradition requests and the criticizing of other countries’

human rights practices. Domestically, a high bar can demonstrate to voters that the government is

serious about tackling crime.

We argue, however, that human-rights concerns in extradition serve as more than cheap talk.

As suggested above, engaging in international criminal cooperation contrary to fundamental norms

creates tension and cognitive dissonance for those officials who observe these norms as a duty and a

responsibility; it might also expose the government to domestic criticism for failing to uphold core

values. Indeed, governments may also face the opposite domestic criticism, that is, calls to disregard

human rights concerns in extradition. Critics might argue that by failing to extradite offenders on

human rights grounds the government is providing a safe haven to criminals (Efrat & Tomasina,

2018: 613). We expect, however, that the strength of the pro-rights criticism will increase with the

country’s respect for human rights. In countries with a strong rights record, governments might face

a domestic backlash for extradition that violates human rights, and such backlash could embarrass

9
the government and tarnish its image as a protector of human rights. The Australian government, for

example, met heavy criticism as it tried to ratify an extradition treaty with China in 2016-2017.

Lawyers accused the government of attempting ‘to appease China, to gift it with a right of

extradition and to abandon any citizen to the fate of a criminal justice system that lacks the most

basic protections’ (Lennox, 2017). Ultimately, the government suffered a humiliating defeat when it

failed to win ratification for the treaty (Murphy, 2017).

In summary, we argue that human-rights concerns do constrain extradition in countries with

greater respect for human rights. Such countries are less likely to extradite wanted persons due to the

possibility of abusive treatment, unfair trial, or excessive punishment. These concerns, however,

carry less weight for countries with a weaker human-rights record. In those countries, officials are

unlikely to experience domestic pressures to guarantee extradited persons’ rights, nor will they do so

out of a deep-seated respect for human rights. Overall, then, we expect to observe fewer extraditions

by countries with greater respect for human rights.

E1: States extradite fewer persons the stronger their respect for human rights.

Analyzing extradition within the European Union

We turn to examining the impact of human rights on the European Arrest Warrant: the arrangement

for extradition – ‘surrender’ in EU parlance – among Member States of the European Union since

2004.

The European Arrest Warrant creates a fast-track procedure for extradition between EU

members, based on the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions – a principle that

requires that a decision made by a judicial authority in one Member State receive full and direct

effect throughout the EU (Plachta, 2003). This means that, under the EAW, national judicial

authorities must accept a foreign warrant – a request for the arrest and surrender of a person,

submitted through a standard form – without inquiring into the underlying facts and circumstances,

10
and they should execute the warrant within strict time limits. The EAW also removes various barriers

to extradition and limits the grounds for refusal. Traditionally, the Executive possesses the authority

to block extradition ordered by the courts. The EAW's system of surrender, however, relies on courts

alone, with minimal formality and no involvement of the Executive. Furthermore, the EAW removes

the nationality exception. Most civil-law countries of Europe restrict or prohibit the extradition of

their own citizens (Efrat & Newman, forthcoming). The European Arrest Warrant, by contrast,

requires EU members to surrender their citizens.

Do basic rights affect the operation of the European Arrest Warrant? One may not expect this

to be the case. Since all EU members are democratic countries that generally respect human rights,

extradition to a fellow EU member presumably should not raise human-rights concerns. Furthermore,

the European Arrest Warrant builds on mutual trust among the Member States. As the Framework

Decision establishing the EAW notes, ‘The mechanism of the European arrest warrant is based on a

high level of confidence between Member States.’10 A judicial authority in one state must trust that

fellow criminal-justice systems adhere to the common rules and principles of the EU, including the

rule of law and human rights (Willems, 2016; Efrat, 2019). The premise of mutual trust means that

human-rights concerns should not influence surrenders among EU members, since they are all

assumed to respect human rights. This makes the EAW a hard test for our argument.

Our dependent variable is the rate of surrenders through the European Arrest Warrant, that is,

the ratio of actual surrenders a Member State makes to the number of surrender requests it receives.

Data on surrender requests and surrenders made come from Member States’ responses to the annual

EU Council questionnaire on quantitative information on the practical operation of the European

Arrest Warrant. Based on the Council’s questionnaire and additional sources, researchers from the

Center for European Policy Studies compiled data on the EAW operation that correct some of the

deficiencies and inconsistencies in Member States’ reporting (Carrera, Guild & Hernanz, 2013).

These data cover the period 2005-2011. Note that the annual figures reported through the

11
questionnaire and used here are totals for each Member State: the total number of surrender requests

that a Member State received from all other EU members combined in a given year, and the total

number of surrenders a Member State made to all other EU members combined in a given year. This

means that the following analysis is monadic and not dyadic. Table 1 provides an overview of the

data by summing up the number of requests (that is, the number of EAWs a country received) and

the number of surrenders during the period considered here.

We measure the key independent variable – respect for human rights in the surrendering state

– through the Physical Integrity Rights Index from the CIRI Human Rights Dataset. Ranging from

zero to eight, this index measures governments’ practice of torture, extrajudicial killing, political

imprisonment, and disappearance (Cingranelli, Richards & Clay, 2014). Higher values indicate

greater respect for human rights.

All models control for the total population in the EU Member State that carries out the

surrenders.11 Since many EAW surrenders involve citizens of other EU members who are sent back

to their home country, we control for the rate of foreign population in the EU Member.12 Additional

controls include Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita,13 and the Member State’s dependence on

trade with the rest of the EU.14 Full variable description and descriptive statistics appear in the online

appendix.

12
 Table I. EAWs received and persons surrendered, 2005-2011

Country EAWs received Persons surrendered

Austria 968 659

Belgium 1145 129
Bulgaria 418 293
Cyprus 211 67
Czech Republic 1469 926
Denmark 295 151
Estonia 288 240
Finland 115 106
France 5380 3580
Germany 65292 4280
Greece 925 539
Hungary 650 512
Ireland 1648 896
Italy 69 18
Latvia 189 91
Lithuania 398 258
Luxembourg 164 70
Malta 64 32
Netherlands 2553 1639
Poland 1780 953
Portugal 539 367
Romania 1645 1246
Slovakia 562 244
Slovenia 442 305
Spain 8702 5279
Sweden 539 459
United Kingdom 32079 3775

Source: Carrera, Guild & Hernanz, 2013. Calculations include only country-years for which both the
number of EAWs received and the number of surrenders are known.

13
 Since our dependent variable is a fraction – the ratio of surrenders made to surrender requests

– we employ two types of models specifically designed for fractional outcomes, that is, dependent

variables that range from 0 to 1, such as rates, proportions, and probabilities. The first is a fractional-

response regression, which computes quasilikelihood estimators based on probit. As a robustness

check, we employ a beta regression with a probit link. In all models, standards errors are clustered by

country to account for potential dependence within units over time. Table 2 reports the results.

Model 1 is a fractional regression that includes the key IV – human rights – alongside the

four standard controls described above and two additional controls that capture potential influences

on the rate of surrender: the strength of the rule of law in the surrendering state15 and the

government’s political orientation expressed through the strength of right-wing parties in

government.16 In this model, the only variable that achieves statistical significance is human rights.

Consistent with our expectation, greater respect for human rights is associated with a lower rate of

surrenders. Figure 1 shows the substantive effect of this variable: a noticeable drop in the rate of

surrenders with the increasing respect for human rights. By contrast, the strength of the rule of law –

which captures the quality of the police and the courts – appears not to affect the surrender rate in

this model. Right-wing governments, despite their reputation for being tough on crime (Farrall &

Hay, 2010), are not more likely to surrender wanted persons.

Models 2–4 conduct several robustness checks. Model 2 re-estimates Model 1 through a beta

regression.17 Some of the controls that were nonsignificant in Model 1 do gain significance in this

model. Importantly, the key result holds: human rights are negatively and significantly associated

with the rate of surrenders through the European Arrest Warrant. Models 3 and 4 – fractional

regressions – confirm the negative effect of human rights on surrenders. Model 3 includes a control

variable that specifically measures the quality of the criminal-justice system. This variable, from the

World Justice Project,18 captures the effectiveness, timeliness, and impartiality of criminal

investigation and adjudication. Criminal-justice quality, however, appears unrelated to the rate of

14
surrenders. So does the presence of veto players.19 In Model 4, we control for a different criminal-

justice indicator: a country’s rate of prisoners per 100,000 population20; we also control for the

percentage of the population holding a positive image of the EU,21 since a more favorable societal

attitude may facilitate compliance with EU law. These two controls, however, lack statistical

significance and the key result holds.

In summary, we have shown that human-rights respect negatively correlates with the rate of

EAW surrenders. This may be one of the reasons for the surprisingly low surrender rate in a system

where nonsurrender should be the exception. By our calculations, the average surrender rate stands at

57% during the period considered here.

Table II. Influences on the rate of surrender through the European Arrest Warrant

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Human rights -0.235** -0.239** -0.17* -0.22**

(0.079) (0.067) (0.079) (0.08)
Total population -0.089 -0.125** -0.409** -0.088
(0.102) (0.042) (0.14) (0.107)
Foreign-born population -0.134 -0.209** -0.195 -0.109
(0.173) (0.077) (0.142) (0.2)
GDP per capita -0.313 -0.212 0.021 -0.031
(0.27) (0.17) (0.251) (0.234)
Trade with EU 0.217 0.168 -0.132 0.251
(0.239) (0.126) (0.251) (0.24)
Rule of law 0.577 0.587**
(0.385) (0.196)
Right-wing government 0.003 0.003*
(0.002) (0.001)
Criminal justice 0.94
(1.038)
Veto players 0.244
(0.596)
Prisoners rate -0.001
(0.001)
EU positive image -1.143
(0.894)
Observations 158 158 109 154
Prob>chi2 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00
Models 1, 3 and 4 are fractional regressions; Model 2 is a beta regression. Robust standards errors in
parentheses, clustering on country. * p<0.05; ** p<0.01.

15
Figure 1. Predicted surrender rates between EU members at different levels of human rights with
95% confidence intervals.

Analyzing extradition to the United States

To further assess the relationship between core values and extradition, we model the extradition of

individuals to the United States. To that end, we obtained data on the number of persons extradited

from each country of the world to the United States during the period 2003-2015.22 The data come

from the US Marshals Service: a federal law-enforcement agency within the US Department of

Justice that serves as the enforcement arm of the federal courts and, among other roles, is responsible

for international extradition.

We begin by illustrating patterns in the extradition of fugitives. During the period examined

here, a total of 5,241 persons were extradited to the United States. Table III lists the top-25

extraditing countries.

16
 Table III. Top-25 extraditing countries to the United States, 2003-2015.

Country Extradited persons

Colombia 1723
Canada 828
Mexico 678
Dominican Rep. 279
United Kingdom 195
Spain 163
Jamaica 113
Costa Rica 103
Germany 92
Netherlands 92
Israel 56
Panama 43
Thailand 41
China 39
Romania 39
Australia 38
Guatemala 38
Italy 38
Trinidad 36
Argentina 34
Brazil 31
France 30
Peru 30
Ghana 27
Bulgaria 25

Figure 2 illustrates the flow of extradited persons to the United States throughout the period under

consideration.

17
Figure 2. Flows of extradited persons to the United States, 2003-2015.

Figure 3 depicts a time trend by illustrating the annual number of extraditions to the United States

from all countries.

18
Figure 3. Annual count of all extraditions to the United States, 2003-2015.

Influences on extradition to the United States

Our dependent variable is the annual number of persons extradited from each country to the United

States. According to our expectation, this number should diminish with the country’s respect for

human rights. Note that, unlike the EU analysis, we lack data on the number of persons whose

extradition the United States requested. The dependent variable is thus a count variable, rather than a

ratio of actual extraditions to extradition requests. Nonetheless, as detailed below, our analysis does

control for influences on the number of extradition requests the United States may have submitted to

a country: a country's distance from the United States, the size of its population, and its level of

criminal activity.

The primary independent variable is the extraditing country’s level of respect for human

rights, measured through CIRI’s Physical Integrity Rights Index. As a robustness check, we employ

the Political Terror Scale (PTS). Ranging from one to five, this measure captures state-sanctioned or

19
state-perpetrated violence. We use the data compiled from the US State Department reports (Gibney

et al., 2016). The original scale is inverted, such that a higher score indicates greater respect for

human rights – similar to the CIRI measure.

Our models include a battery of controls. We control for the size of the extraditing country’s

population23 – where there are more people there are more criminal offenders – as well as GDP per

capita.24 Distance from the United States serves as another control, since fleeing criminals often seek

refuge in near-by territories; more broadly, countries close to each other experience significant cross-

border exchange, which raises the potential for criminal activity (van Schendel & Abraham 2005).25

Beyond human rights, our key independent variable, we control for two additional domestic

institutional features of the extraditing country: democracy and common law. Democracies have

been shown to be more cooperative across issue areas (e.g. Bättig & Bernauer, 2009), and this

tendency may extend to extradition.26 Common law countries may also be more prone to extradite to

the United States – a fellow common-law country – since the shared legal origin fosters

predictability and confidence, which facilitate cooperation (Mitchell & Powell, 2011: 75). Common-

law countries are also willing to extradite their own citizens, whereas many civil-law countries

prohibit the extradition of their citizens (Shearer, 1971).

Significant criminal activity within a country is likely to generate American demand for the

extradition of offenders. Given the high priority that the United States accords to drugs and money

laundering (US Department of State, 2017), we expect more extraditions from countries that are

heavily involved in the drug trade or in the laundering of money. The State Department’s annual

ranking of money-laundering involvement serves as our proxy of criminal activity.27 This measure

also captures drug activity, since much of laundered money originates in the drug trade.

Countries that are friendly toward the United States – measured through ideal-point distance

in UN General-Assembly voting28 – may be more likely to assist American law-enforcement efforts

through extradition. Greater voting distance should thus lower the number of extraditions.

20
 Finally, we control for the existence of an extradition treaty between the country and the

United States.29 Countries often allow extradition in the absence of a treaty (Sadoff, 2016: chap. 7),

yet a treaty facilitates extradition by establishing a legal obligation to extradite and by laying out the

rules and requirements of the process (Shearer, 1971: 22).

Results

Table 4 reports the results of negative binomial regressions, with the annual count of extraditions as

the DV. Standards errors are clustered by country to account for potential dependence within units

over time. Results are reported as incidence rate ratios (IRR) to facilitate interpretation. An IRR

between zero and one represents a reduction in the expected count, given a one-unit increase in the

independent variable; values greater than one indicate an increase in the expected count.

In Model 1, respect for human rights, measured through the CIRI index of physical integrity

rights, is negatively associated with the number of extraditions: a one-point increase on this scale

reduces the expected count of extraditions by 26%. Similarly, in Model 2, the Political Terror Scale

is negatively correlated with the number of extraditions: a one-point increase on this variable lowers

the expected count of extraditions by 30%. These findings support our expectation: countries with a

stronger human rights record tend to extradite a considerably lower number of individuals.30

21
Table IV. Influences on extradition to the United States

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Human rights 0.742** 0.749** 0.734** 0.722**
(CIRI) (0.077) (0.069) (0.08) (0.075)
Human rights 0.697*
(PTS) (0.122)
Population 1.402** 1.62** 1.457** 1.08 1.303
(0.17) (0.179) (0.142) (0.168) (0.188)
GDP per capita 1.432* 1.325 2.07** 1.157 1.471
(0.243) (0.206) (0.359) (0.322) (0.307)
Distance from 0.155** 0.125** 0.335** 0.234** 0.276**
US (0.062) (0.057) (0.079) (0.097) (0.101)
Democracy 1.069 1.036 1.098* 1.112* 1.025
(0.048) (0.041) (0.041) (0.049) (0.044)
Common law 2.053* 1.731 2.549** 1.623 1.31
(0.718) (0.628) (0.708) (0.496) (0.498)
Money 1.982** 1.87** 1.762** 1.957*
laundering (0.369) (0.321) (0.319) (0.52)
UN-voting 0.813 0.696
distance (0.18) (0.142)
Extradition treaty 4.432** 5.234** 2.746 3.469* 8.274**
(2.514) (2.994) (1.438) (1.95) (5.74)
Drug list 4.845**
(1.882)
US ally 1.797
(0.554)
Obama 1.039
(0.123)
Trade with US 1.328*
(0.182)
Rule of law 1.107
(0.355)
Veto players 0.642
(0.366)
US economic aid 1
(0.006)
Racial 0.964*
intolerance (0.018)
Observations 1310 1754 1332 1295 605
Prob>chi2 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Negative binomial regressions. The table reports incidence rate ratios. Robust standards errors in
parentheses, clustering on country. * p<0.05; ** p<0.01.

The control variables in Models 1 and 2 conform with expectations for the most part. More

populated countries extradite more individuals to the United States. So do countries with a higher

22
GDP per capita, possibly indicating richer countries’ greater capacity to apprehend criminals. By

contrast, countries that are distant from the United States extradite fewer individuals. Criminal

activity considerably increases the expected count of extraditions: in both models 1 and 2, a one-unit

increase on the money-laundering scale almost doubles the number of extraditions. Countries that are

politically removed from the United States, as measured by a larger distance in UN voting, extradite

fewer persons – but this finding is not statistically significant. Common law countries are more likely

to extradite to the common law-based US justice system, but this is only significant in Model 1. As

expected, the presence of an extradition treaty makes a country much more likely to extradite: a

treaty increases the frequency of extraditions more than fourfold (Model 1) or more than fivefold

(Model 2). Interestingly, however, the expectation regarding democracy is not supported by these

two models. Whereas many studies document the cooperation-enhancing impact of democracy, we

find that democracy may increase the expected count of extraditions – but this effect is not

statistically significant.

Models 3-5 offer a set of robustness checks.

Model 3 measures a country’s crime involvement through its inclusion on the US ‘Majors

list’: an annual Presidential identification of the major drug-producing and drug-transit countries

worldwide. Involvement in the drug trade is associated with a higher number of extraditions, as one

would expect.31 This model also measures a country’s political relations with the United States

through the existence of an alliance32 and introduces an additional control for the Obama

administration. The latter is not statistically significant: extradition patterns under the Obama

administration do not differ markedly from those of the George W Bush administration. All these

changes leave intact the negative impact of human rights on the count of extraditions.

In Model 4, bilateral trade serves as measure for a country’s relations with the United States.

As one would expect, countries that are more dependent on their trade with the United States tend to

extradite more individuals.33 This model also controls for the strength of the extraditing country’s

23
rule of law, since the ability to carry out the process of extradition might depend on the capacity of

the local legal system.34 This variable, however, seems unrelated to the number of extraditions. The

presence of veto players also does not affect the count of extraditions.35 Human rights, however, are

still negatively associated with that count.

Model 5 uses the dependence on US economic aid as a measure for a country’s relations with

the United States.36 In addition, this model includes a measure of societal ethnocentrism.

Ethnocentric sentiments intensify the view of globalization as harmful: they inspire concerns that

global integration might bring with it foreign intervention and the erosion of local traditions or

values. Ethnocentrism thus reduces the support for free trade (Mansfield & Mutz, 2009; Margalit,

2012). It is possible that ethnocentrism similarly fuels resistance to extradition as an abdication of

sovereignty in the legal arena. Our measure of ethnocentrism comes from the World Values Survey

(Inglehart et al., 2014): the percentage of respondents who indicated they would prefer not to have

people of a different race as their neighbors. This measure is indeed negatively correlated with the

number of extraditions: where intolerance is rife, there is less willingness for limiting local judicial

authority by surrendering fugitives to stand trial abroad. Consistent with previous models, this model

also shows a negative effect of human rights on extraditions to the United States – an effect that is

statistically significant and substantively large.

Extradition vs. extraordinary rendition

Our analysis of the US case applies to legal, formal extradition practices and not the covert

extraordinary rendition program, which expanded considerably between 2001-2005. As part of this

program, the US government and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked with foreign

governments to secretly detain and interrogate terrorist suspects in undisclosed locations worldwide

(Cordell, 2017). Owing to its secret nature, it is difficult to identify all the individuals who were

detained, but conservative estimates put the number at over 100 (Blakeley & Raphael, 2018). While

24
the US government has not banned the practice of extraordinary rendition, starting in 2005 it

severely curtailed it.

While extraordinary rendition is an important issue, its non-inclusion in our analysis does not

affect the results concerning extradition. Extradition is the primary, longstanding channel for the

transfer of criminal suspects among states for the purpose of prosecution and punishment.

Extraordinary rendition served a different goal: detention and interrogation of suspects, rather than

prosecution. Thus, it was not an alternative to extradition. The extraordinary-rendition program is

also much more limited than extradition in scope and size. The United States requests the extradition

of persons for a variety of crimes: first and foremost drug offenses, but also homicide, assault,

robbery, fraud, sex offenses, and others. In comparison, extraordinary rendition involved only

terrorist suspects. And the overall number of roughly 100 persons secretly detained is much smaller

than the number of extradited persons, whose annual count ranges roughly from 300 to 500.

Furthermore, the extraordinary-rendition program was short-lived, largely ending in 2005. The

analysis here covers the years 2003-2015 – mostly in the post-rendition period. Our results hold even

when the analysis is limited to the post-rendition period, that is, 2006-2015.

Moreover, the fundamental logic of our analysis – the key role of core domestic values of

human rights – played an important role in the extraordinary-rendition case. The United States likely

turned to the secret channel of rendition since it feared a public backlash against the violations of the

rights of terrorist suspects. And indeed, the revelation of the program and the associated scandal put

considerable pressure on partner governments, particularly those committed to high standards of

human rights (Huq, 2006; Blakeley & Raphael, 2017).

While extraordinary rendition was not a substitute for extradition, there are other channels

that states may use – instead of extradition – to transfer criminal suspects across borders for

prosecution: from deportation to unilateral lure-and-capture operations (Sadoff, 2016). We have

25
focused on extradition as the primary channel for delivering suspects, but see important future work

considering these alternatives.

Exploring the mechanisms: Britain’s extradition controversy

After statistically establishing the impact of human rights on extradition, we take a closer look at the

causal mechanism through the British case. The issue of extradition has fueled an intense public

debate in Britain since the reform of the Extradition Act in 2003 (Efrat, 2018). Facing globalization’s

challenge to international law-enforcement cooperation, the Labor government headed by Tony Blair

sought to modernize and streamline the way in which extradition requests submitted to Britain are

handled. In particular, the reform established a simplified procedure for dealing with extradition to

EU countries through the European Arrest Warrant. Also in 2003, Britain signed a new extradition

treaty with the United States. In the wake of the attacks of 11 September 2001, this was seen as a key

pillar in the Blair government’s fight against terrorism.

Yet extradition policy quickly became a recurring political hot potato. Growing concerns

about extradition to the United States and EU countries were expressed in parliamentary debates, in

the media, before parliamentary committees, and before a government-appointed panel that reviewed

Britain’s extradition arrangements. Consistent with our argument, critics highlighted what they

perceived as human rights violations or other expressions of unfairness in the American and

European justice systems – systems that, in their view, failed to meet the core standards of British

law.

Both the government-appointed panel and the House of Lords’ Select Committee on

Extradition Law observed that many of the witnesses before them focused on ‘aspects of the US

justice system which they felt made extradition inappropriate or unjust’ (Home Office, 2011: 254;

Select Committee on Extradition Law, 2015a: 99). MP Dominic Grieve (Con), for example, argued

that ‘[t]here is a lack of public confidence in the US criminal justice system … there are perceptions

26
in this country that the US criminal justice system can be harsh and its penal policy can be harsh, and

its sentencing policy can appear disproportionate by European and British standards’ (Home Affairs

Committee, 2012: Ev 60). Some expressed concerns over the very high frequency of prosecutions

ending in plea bargains. While plea bargains occur in the British legal system as well, critics

suggested that the American system obtains these deals excessively and under pressure – ‘forc[ing]

possibly innocent people to make guilty pleas,’ according to MP David Davies (Con) (Hansard, 16

October 2012, col 171).

The harsh prison conditions in the United States also attracted criticism. MP Douglas Hogg

(Con) argued that US prisons are ‘ghastly … an affront to civilization’ (Hansard, 12 July 2006, col

1439). British Newspapers echoed this view. The Week magazine described Chris Tappin, a retired

British businessman extradited to the United States in 2012, as ‘the victim of an FBI sting,’ held in ‘a

remote prison in the desert,’ where detainees suffer abuse and humiliating treatment (Edwards 2012).

Criticism of European justice standards similarly highlighted the poor prison conditions in

certain EU countries: cells might be overcrowded or filthy, and prisoners might be subject to

mistreatment by prison personnel or other prisoners. Opponents also suggested that not all EU

countries fully guarantee the right to a fair trial. For example, they might hold the extradited person

in a long pre-trial detention or admit evidence that was inappropriately obtained (Joint Committee on

Human Rights, 2011b: 188-193). Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights summarized the

dilemma:

It is important, however, to balance the need to return alleged offenders to the country
in which the crime took place with the need to respect the rights of those requested for
extradition. In our Report we highlight a number of areas where we believe the
protection of rights for these persons is significantly below the standard which a UK
citizen should expect. This is in part due to the introduction of a streamlined
extradition process in the Extradition Act 2003, including the European Arrest
Warrant, and the varying human rights protections within the European Union (Joint
Committee on Human Rights, 2011a: 7).

Others were more blunt. Baroness Ludford (Lib Dem) argued that ‘Varying criminal justice

procedures and standards across the EU have meant some of those surrendered under the

27
EAW suffer unfair treatment and breaches of their human rights’ (Select Committee on

Extradition Law, 2015b: 767). According to the right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP),

‘the automatic judicial surrender under the EAW is based on the assumption that the rights of

the suspect would be protected anywhere in the EU just as well as they are protected in the

UK. This is demonstrably not the case: the human rights record of most EU members is

significantly poorer than our own’ (Home Office, 2012: public consultation).

Overall, Britain’s extradition debate demonstrates the prominence of human-rights

concerns in how rights-respecting countries think about extradition. It also shows how

governments might face criticism and pressure for failing to protect the human rights of

persons facing extradition. Such pressure, in turn, may inspire greater caution in the surrender

of persons to foreign justice-systems, at the expense of the joint efforts against crime.

Conclusion

In this article, we developed an argument as to how human rights alter patterns of cooperation

on transnational crime. Our argument suggests that engaging in cooperation with a foreign

legal system could expose a government to domestic criticism: political opponents, NGOs,

and the media might leverage such cooperation to question the government’s commitment to

society’s core values. Similarly, the contradictions between domestic and foreign values may

be seen as imperiling the mission and beliefs of law-enforcement officials that implement the

cooperative measures. As a result, countries with stronger respect for human rights are more

hesitant to cooperate on criminal justice. Specifically, they are likely to extradite fewer

individuals, given the human-rights risks that extradition poses.

To test our argument, we analyzed data on wanted-person surrenders within the

European Union and to the United States. Across datasets, and in qualitative evidence

concerning Britain's extradition arrangements, we find robust support for our argument. In

28
short, stronger commitment to human rights correlates with the extradition of fewer

individuals. While our findings suggest the applicability of the argument in both the European

and American contexts, future work should explore other instances of criminal-justice

cooperation, such as mutual legal assistance; dive deeper into the mechanism at play; and

examine alternative channels for transferring criminal suspects across borders.

Our findings offer important implications for scholars of international politics. We join a

growing group of scholars that examine not only formal agreements and official rules, but

also their actual effects on the ground (e.g., Jo & Simmons, 2016). To our knowledge, this

paper is among the first to do so in the area of criminal-justice cooperation. Moreover, this

article highlights the role that human rights can play in shaping and constraining foreign

policy. Despite the fact that policy-makers often tout such a connection, empirical evidence of

its existence is scarce (e.g. Lebovic & Voeten, 2009; Erickson, 2011; Nielsen & Simmons,

2015; Schulze, Pamp & Thurner, 2017). The evidence presented here, however, suggests that

even in instances where there may be real benefits to cooperation – such as curbing crime – it

may be constrained by human rights concerns. Perhaps this is because of the nature of the

threat that criminal-justice cooperation poses. In other issue-areas, cooperation might affect

human rights in a broad and remote manner that is hard to specify in advance. By contrast,

cooperation against crime directly and immediately threatens the rights of specific, known

individuals. Such a threat is more difficult to ignore.

Replication Data: The data, replication code, and online appendix for this article can be
found at http://www.prio.org/jpr/datasets.

Acknowledgements: We thank the editor of JPR and three anonymous reviewers for helpful
feedback. Guy Freedman provided excellent research assistance.

Funding
This research was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation
programme under Grant Agreement no. 770142 (Reconciling Europe with its Citizens through
Democracy and the Rule of Law – ‘RECONNECT’).

29
References

Andreas, Peter & Ethan Nadelmann (2006) Policing the Globe : Criminalization and Crime Control
in International Relations. New York: Oxford University Press.

Armingeon, Klaus; Virginia Wenger, Fiona Wiedemeier, Christian Isler, Laura Knöpfel, David
Weisstanner & Sarah Engler (2019) Comparative Political Data Set 1960-2017. Bern: Institute of
Political Science, University of Berne.

Bailey, Michael A; Anton Strezhnev & Erik Voeten (2017) Estimating Dynamic State Preferences
from United Nations Voting Data. Journal of Conflict Resolution 61(2): 430–456.

Bättig, Michèle B & Thomas Bernauer (2009) National institutions and global public goods: Are
democracies more cooperative in climate change policy? International Organization 63(2):
281–308.

Blakeley, Ruth & Sam Raphael (2017) British torture in the ‘war on terror’. European Journal of
International Relations 23(2): 243-266.

Blakeley, Ruth & Sam Raphael (2018) Human rights fact-finding and the CIA’s Rendition,
Detention and Interrogation programme: A response to Cordell. International Area Studies
Review 21(2): 169-178.

Carey, Sabine C (2007) European aid: Human rights versus bureaucratic inertia? Journal of Peace
Research 44(4): 447-464.

Carrera, Sergio; Elspeth Guild & Nicholas Hernanz (2013) Europe’s most wanted? Recalibrating
trust in the European arrest warrant system. SSRN Paper #2275268.

Chase, Steven & Robert Fife (2016) Justin Trudeau defends extradition treaty talks with China. The
Globe and Mail 21 September.

Cingranelli, David L; David L Richards & K Chad Clay (2014) The CIRI Human Rights Dataset.
http://www.humanrightsdata.com/ Version 2014.04.14.

Cordell, Rebecca (2017) Measuring extraordinary rendition and international

cooperation. International Area Studies Review 20(2): 179-197.

Dugard, John & Christine Van den Wyngaert (1998) Reconciling extradition with human rights.
American Journal of International Law 92(2): 187–212.

Edwards, Tim (2012) Extradited businessman Tappin to appear in US court today. The Week 27
February.

Efrat, Asif (2018) Resisting cooperation against: Britain’s extradition controversy, 2003-2015.
International Journal of Law, Crime, and Justice 52(1): 118-128.

Efrat, Asif (2019) Assessing mutual trust among EU members: Evidence from the European arrest
warrant. Journal of European Public Policy 26(5): 656-675.

30
Efrat, Asif & Abraham L Newman (2016) Deciding to defer: The importance of fairness in resolving
transnational jurisdictional conflicts. International Organization 70(2): 409–441.

Efrat, Asif & Abraham L Newman (2017) Divulging data: Domestic determinants of international
information sharing. Review of International Organizations 13(3): 395-419.

Efrat, Asif & Abraham L Newman (forthcoming) Intolerant Justice: Ethnocentrism and
Transnational-litigation Frameworks. Review of International Organizations DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-018-09343-9.

Efrat, Asif & Marcello Tomasina (2018) Value-free extradition? Human rights and the dilemma of
surrendering wanted persons to China. Journal of Human Rights 17(5): 605-621.

Erickson, Jennifer L (2011) Market imperative meets normative power: Human rights and European
arms transfer policy. European Journal of International Relations 19(2): 209-234.

Fair Trials (2017) The disappearing trial: Towards a rights-based approach to trial waiver systems.
https://www.fairtrials.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Report-The-Disappearing-Trial.pdf

Farrall, Stephen & Colin Hay (2010) Not so tough on crime? Why weren't the Thatcher governments
more radical in reforming the criminal justice system? British Journal of Criminology 50(3):
550-569.

Fariss, Christopher J (2014) Respect for human rights has improved over time: Modeling the
changing standard of accountability. American Political Science Review 108(2): 297-318.

Finnegan, William (2017) Taking down terrorists in court. New Yorker 15 May.

Garcia, Michael John & Charles Doyle (2010) Extradition to and from the United States: Overview
of the law and recent treaties. Congressional Research Service 17 March.

Gibney, Mark; Linda Cornet, Reed Wood, Peter Haschke & Daniel Arnon (2016) The political terror
scale, 1976-2015. Retrieved November 27, 2016 from the Political Terror Scale website: ht-
tp://www.politicalterrorscale.org

Hafner-Burton, Emilie M (2005) Trading human rights: How preferential trade agreements influence
government repression. International Organization 59(3): 593–629.

Home Affairs Committee. House of Commons (2012) The US-UK Extradition Treaty. Vol. I. HC
644. March 30. London: Stationary Office.

Home Office (2011) A Review of the United Kingdom's Extradition Arrangements. Presented 30
September. Available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/117673/extradition-
review.pdf

Home Office (2012) UK extradition arrangements: Evidence given to the review panel. Available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-extradition-arrangements-evidence-given-to-the-
review-panel

31
Huq, Aziz A (2006) Extraordinary rendition and the wages of hypocrisy. World Policy Journal
23(1): 25-35.

Inglehart, Ronald; Christian Haerpfer, Alejandro Moreno, Christian Welzel, Ksenniya Kizilova,
Jaime Diez-Medrano, Marta Lagos, Pippa Norris, Eduard Ponarin & B Puranen, eds. (2014)
World Values Survey: Round Six - Country-pooled Datafile
Version: www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp

Jo, Hyeran & Beth A Simmons (2016) Can the international criminal court deter atrocity?
International Organization 70(3): 443-475.

Joint Committee on Human Rights. House of Lords and House of Commons (2011a) The Human
Rights Implications of UK Extradition Policy. HL Paper 156; HC 767. 22 June. London: The
Stationary Office.

Joint Committee on Human Rights. House of Lords and House of Commons (2011b) Human rights
implications of UK extradition policy: Written evidence. Available at
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/joint-committees/human-
rights/JCHR_EXT_Written_Evidence_11.pdf

Kelley, Judith (2007) Who keeps international commitments and why? The international criminal
court and bilateral nonsurrender agreements. American Political Science Review 101(3): 573–
589.

Lebovic, James H & & Erik Voeten (2009) The cost of shame: International organizations and
foreign aid in the punishing of human rights violators. Journal of Peace Research 46(1): 79-
97.

Leeds, Brett Ashley; Jeffrey M Ritter, Sara McLaughlin Mitchell & Andrew G Long (2002) Alliance
treaty obligations and provisions, 1815-1944. International Interactions 28(3): 237-260.

Lennox, Tom (2017) Extradition treaty with China is a bad deal for justice. The Australian 27
January.

Magnuson, William (2011) The domestic politics of international extradition. Virginia Journal of
International Law 52(4): 839–902.

Mansfield, Edward D & Diana C Mutz (2009) Support for free trade: Self-interest, sociotropic
politics, and out-group anxiety. International Organization 63(3): 425–457.

Margalit, Yotam (2012) Lost in globalization: International economic integration and the sources of
popular discontent. International Studies Quarterly 56(3): 484–500.

Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin & Emilia Justyna Powell (2011) Domestic Law Goes Global: Legal
Traditions and International Courts. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Murphy, Katherine (2017) Government withdraws China extradition treaty after party revolt. The
Guardian 27 March.

32
Nadelmann, Ethan A (1993) The evolution of United States involvement in the international
rendition of fugitives. NYU Journal of International Law and Politics 25(4): 813-885.

Neumayer, Eric (2003) Do human rights matter in bilateral aid allocation? A quantitative analysis of
21 donor countries. Social Sciences Quarterly 84(3): 650-666.

Nielsen, Richard A & Beth A Simmons (2015) Rewards for ratification: Payoffs for participating in
the international human rights regime? International Studies Quarterly 59(2): 197-208.

Plachta, Michael (2003) European arrest warrant: Revolution in extradition. European Journal of
Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice 11(2): 178–194.

Posner, Eric (2014) The Twilight of Human Rights Law. New York: Oxford University Press.

Putnam, Tonya L (2016) Courts without Borders: Law, Politics, and US Extraterritoriality. New
York: Cambridge University Press.

Pyle, Christopher H (2001) Extradition, Politics, and Human Rights. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.

Sadoff, David A (2016) Bringing International Fugitives to Justice: Extradition and Its Alternatives.
New York: Cambridge University Press.

Schulze, Christian; Oliver Pamp & Paul W Thurner (2017) Economic incentives and the
effectiveness of nonproliferation norms: German major conventional arms transfers 1953–
2013. International Studies Quarterly 61(3): 529-543.

Select Committee on Extradition Law. House of Lords. (2015a). Extradition: UK Law and Practice.
HL Paper 126. March 10. London: Stationary Office.

Select Committee on Extradition Law. House of Lords (2015b) Oral and Written Evidence.
Available at https://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/extradition-
law/SELECT%20COMMITTEE%20ON%20EXTRADITION%20LAW.pdf

Sharfstein, Daniel J (2001) Human rights beyond the war on terrorism: Extradition defenses based on
prison conditions in the United States. Santa Clara Law Review 42(4): 1137–1158.

Shearer, Ivan Anthony (1971) Extradition in International Law. Manchester: Manchester University
Press.

Stuntz, William J (2011) The Collapse of American Criminal Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.

Tomz, Michael & Jessica Weeks (forthcoming) Human Rights, Democracy, and International
Conflict. Journal of Politics.

UN (2014) World Crime Trends and Emerging Issues and Responses in the Field of Crime
Prevention and Criminal Justice. E/CN.15/2014/5. 12 February.

33
UNODC (2009) Manual on International Cooperation in Criminal Matters related to Terrorism.
Vienna.

UNODC (2010) The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment.
Vienna.

UNODC (2012) Manual on Mutual Legal Assistance and Extradition. Vienna.

US Department of State (2017) International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. March. Available at
https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2017/

van Schendel, Willem & Itty Abraham (2005) Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders,
and the Other Side of Globalization. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Willems, Auke (2016) Mutual trust as a term of art in EU criminal law: Revealing its hybrid
character. European Journal of Legal Studies 9(1): 211-249.

ASIF EFRAT, b. 1974, PhD in Government (Harvard University, 2009); Associate Professor at the
Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, IDC Herzliya (2010– ).

ABRAHAM L. NEWMAN, b. 1973, PhD in Political Science (University of California, Berkeley,

2005); Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University (2006–
).

34
Notes

1 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, Article 8; International

Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, Article 11.

2 Soering v. United Kingdom, 161 Eur. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) (1989).
3 See Model Treaty on Extradition (A/RES/45/116), Article 3(f); International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights, Article 14.

4 Israel’s Extradition Law, Article 16; Extradition Treaty between the Government of the United

States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom (2003), Article 7.
5 Inter-American Convention on Extradition (1981), Article 9.
6 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 19(2).
7 Model Treaty on Extradition, Article 3(f).

8 E.g., Britain’s Extradition Act, Section 21.

9 See, for example, Magee v. O'Dea [1994] 1 I.R. 500 (Ireland); Norris v. United States of America

[2010] UKSC 9 (United Kingdom).

10 2002/584/JHA: Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on the European arrest warrant,

Preamble, Recital 10.

11 Source: Eurostat. This variable is logged.

12 Foreign population/total population, logged. Source: Eurostat.

13 Source: World Bank’s World Development Indicators. This variable is logged.

14 (export to the EU+import from the EU)/GDP, logged. Source of trade data: Eurostat.

15 Source: World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.

16 Parliamentary seat share of right-wing parties in government. Source: Comparative Political

Dataset (Armingeon et al., 2019).

17A beta regression requires that a dependent variable be between 0 and 1, and not include 0 or 1.
The relevant four observations of 0 or 1 in our data were recoded as 0.001 or 0.999, respectively.

35
18https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/wjp-rule-law-index/wjp-rule-law-index-
2017%E2%80%932018/factors-rule-law/criminal-justice-factor-8.

19
Source: Henisz’s Political Constraint Index.

20 Source: Eurostat.

21 Source: Eurobarometer.

22 We exclude countries with which the United States had no diplomatic relations during this period.

23 Source: World Bank’s World Development Indicators. This variable is logged.

24 Source: World Bank’s World Development Indicators. This variable is logged.

25 Source: CEPII GeoDist database. This variable is logged.

26 Source: Polity IV.

27The ranking appears in the State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports.
See, for example: https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2018/

28 Source: Bailey, Strezhnev, and Voeten 2017.

29 Source: 18 U.S.C. § 3181; Garcia and Doyle 2010.

30 As a check, we use Christopher Fariss’s Latent Human Rights Protection Score, which builds on

13 indicators of repression (http://humanrightsscores.org/; Fariss, 2014). The results are consistent

with those obtained with the CIRI and PTS measures.

31 Source: State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports and the Federal

Register.
32 Source: Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (Leeds et al., 2012).

33 (export of US to country A+import to US from country A)/country A’s GDP, logged. Source of

trade data: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

34 Source: World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.

35 Source: Henisz’s Political Constraint Index.

36
 36 US economic aid to Country A/Country A’s GDP, logged. Aid data are from US Overseas Loans

and Grants.

37

View publication stats