4 ms·

> As a non-US citizen, that's what I find most troubling about this. Extradition isn't unique to the United States, though. It's a common feature of most large

> As a non-US citizen, that's what I find most troubling about this. Extradition isn't unique to the United States, though. It's a common feature of most large country's legal systems. This doesn't mean that any country can prosecute foreign people with arbitrary laws at their leisure, though. Most extradition agreements would require that the offense be a crime in both countries, for example, and require a reasonable expectation that the punishment will be proportional to the crime (i.e. not petty political retribution). In your US-Mexicon-Peru example, Mexico would indeed be likely to hand over the US citizen to Peru if (and only if) the accused criminal act was a crime in both countries. Mexico has additional constraints that would forbid the extradition if the death penalty was a likely outcome, but if the likely sentence was a prison term, the evidence was sufficient, and the crime was reasonably serious then the person would be on their way.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Sure but it generally involves someone fleeing a country where they committed the crime.
pydry 5y ago
>This doesn't mean that any country can prosecute foreign people with arbitrary laws at their leisure, though. Most extradition agreements would require that the offense be a crime in both countries, for example. Ok but Anne Sacoolas ran over and killed a kid (definitely a crime here) and she wasn't extradited. While Julian Assange exposed a US war crime and is extradited because US espionage law literally counts that as spying. Not a crime in the UK. It really does appear that "at their leisure" is precisely how it works. There's the exercise of raw power with a thin veneer of false legal pretext on top designed to manufacture consent and convince those susceptible to the just world fallacy.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Plenty of people get extradited from the US to face charges abroad. Sacoolas is more an exception than a rule. Likely the only reason why she would not be extradited is because she's a "diplomat" (aka a spook or the wife of a spook). It kinda sucks that the US protects members of its intelligence services from criminal charges abroad, but the fact that it does that is kinda irrelevant to whether other, unrelated extraditions should go forward. I have to admit though it would be interesting if the UK played a game of tit for tat here. We will extradite Assange, but only after you send us Sacoolas. But they probably won't because Assange being prosecuted is also in their national interest, whereas Sacoolas facing her charges has little bearing on UK national interests.
  - pydry 5y ago
    >Plenty of people get extradited from the US to face charges abroad. Sure. People whom the US doesn't give a fuck about. "At their leisure" and "one rule for us; another for you" still applies. Sacoolas wasn't an exception in any meaningful sense. She is very much the rule.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      I guess my point is that this goes for all countries. "Diplomats" are often not prosecuted or extradited for crimes committed abroad. It's not just the US that takes advantage of this system -- and I haven't even seen evidence that the US is an exception to the norm in this space. The "uses and abuses" section of the relevant page on Wikipedia has plenty of examples, and there are probably many more that don't make the news. It is not a novel thing and is basically irrelevant to whether Assange ought to be extradited.
      - Dah00n 5y ago
        How about a diplomats wife? They can clearly also escape extradition. It has nothing to do with what title you hold but if the US state gives a fuck or not.
        akiselev 5y ago
        > It has nothing to do with what title you hold but if the US state gives a fuck or not. The US cares about US operatives because they have a job to do on behalf of the US. The operatives can't do their job if the host nation holds the prosecution of their spouse over their head. I think you may be under the false impression that the United States is unique in this regard but it's basic diplomacy as standardized by the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations [1] - Article 37 specifically. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomati...
        pydry 5y ago
- SeanLuke 5y ago
  Anne Scoolas had diplomatic immunity, right? That's an entirely different ball of wax. Perhaps Scoolas isn't a good example for your case.
  - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
    Sure, despite there being a formal agreement that people at that specific base _not_ receive diplomatic immunity. I'm my opinion though, this just reinforces the idea that it didn't matter what the rules were - people in power were sufficiently motivated to justify what they wanted to do, they just needed a way to make it relatively palatable to the general public.
    - rhino369 5y ago
      >Sure, despite there being a formal agreement that people at that specific base _not_ receive diplomatic immunity. At least one UK court disagreed with your interpretation. AND the US and UK re-wrote the agreement after the incident, which strongly suggests the agreement did originally allow families to receive immunity.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Sure but it generally involves someone fleeing a country where they committed the crime.

pydry 5y ago

>This doesn't mean that any country can prosecute foreign people with arbitrary laws at their leisure, though. Most extradition agreements would require that the offense be a crime in both countries, for example. Ok but Anne Sacoolas ran over and killed a kid (definitely a crime here) and she wasn't extradited. While Julian Assange exposed a US war crime and is extradited because US espionage law literally counts that as spying. Not a crime in the UK. It really does appear that "at their leisure" is precisely how it works. There's the exercise of raw power with a thin veneer of false legal pretext on top designed to manufacture consent and convince those susceptible to the just world fallacy.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Plenty of people get extradited from the US to face charges abroad. Sacoolas is more an exception than a rule. Likely the only reason why she would not be extradited is because she's a "diplomat" (aka a spook or the wife of a spook). It kinda sucks that the US protects members of its intelligence services from criminal charges abroad, but the fact that it does that is kinda irrelevant to whether other, unrelated extraditions should go forward. I have to admit though it would be interesting if the UK played a game of tit for tat here. We will extradite Assange, but only after you send us Sacoolas. But they probably won't because Assange being prosecuted is also in their national interest, whereas Sacoolas facing her charges has little bearing on UK national interests.
- pydry 5y ago
  >Plenty of people get extradited from the US to face charges abroad. Sure. People whom the US doesn't give a fuck about. "At their leisure" and "one rule for us; another for you" still applies. Sacoolas wasn't an exception in any meaningful sense. She is very much the rule.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    I guess my point is that this goes for all countries. "Diplomats" are often not prosecuted or extradited for crimes committed abroad. It's not just the US that takes advantage of this system -- and I haven't even seen evidence that the US is an exception to the norm in this space. The "uses and abuses" section of the relevant page on Wikipedia has plenty of examples, and there are probably many more that don't make the news. It is not a novel thing and is basically irrelevant to whether Assange ought to be extradited.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      How about a diplomats wife? They can clearly also escape extradition. It has nothing to do with what title you hold but if the US state gives a fuck or not.
      - akiselev 5y ago
        > It has nothing to do with what title you hold but if the US state gives a fuck or not. The US cares about US operatives because they have a job to do on behalf of the US. The operatives can't do their job if the host nation holds the prosecution of their spouse over their head. I think you may be under the false impression that the United States is unique in this regard but it's basic diplomacy as standardized by the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations [1] - Article 37 specifically. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomati...
        pydry 5y ago
SeanLuke 5y ago
Anne Scoolas had diplomatic immunity, right? That's an entirely different ball of wax. Perhaps Scoolas isn't a good example for your case.
- InvertedRhodium 5y ago
  Sure, despite there being a formal agreement that people at that specific base _not_ receive diplomatic immunity. I'm my opinion though, this just reinforces the idea that it didn't matter what the rules were - people in power were sufficiently motivated to justify what they wanted to do, they just needed a way to make it relatively palatable to the general public.
  - rhino369 5y ago
    >Sure, despite there being a formal agreement that people at that specific base _not_ receive diplomatic immunity. At least one UK court disagreed with your interpretation. AND the US and UK re-wrote the agreement after the incident, which strongly suggests the agreement did originally allow families to receive immunity.