UK-US Extradition Treaty

The courts in Houston, Texas must determine bail terms—they are notoriously stringent—but, of course, we welcome any measures by the Government to facilitate the granting of bail to those three individuals. The Government have got themselves into that sticky situation by eagerly enforcing our obligations under the treaty and failing to exert, until very late in the day, meaningful political pressure on the United States to do likewise. There is no excuse, however, for the mess in which we find ourselves. The Government repeatedly argue that, because we do not demand prima facie evidence from Council of Europe countries—Albania and Azerbaijan are the most salubrious examples in the long list of countries cited by the Government—we should not demand it from the US. Broadly, because the US is a ““mature democracy”” we should not have any qualms about extraditing British citizens there. I should like to make three quick observations. First, as I mentioned, we have reciprocal agreements with those countries, but none of the arrangements have such wildly differing evidential burdens. Hence our support for the European arrest warrant which, as I said, is based on symmetry between the parties that entered into it, and is reciprocal between nations. The US-UK agreement, by contrast, is unique in its lopsided provisions. Secondly, Council of Europe countries are all signatories of the European convention on human rights, which is not binding on the United States. Any contravention of the ECHR by a Council of Europe state subsequent to extradition can be reviewed by the European Court of Human Rights, but such judicial review is not available to individuals extradited to the United States.