Extradition from a human rights perspective

Abstract

Having a link between extradition and human rights enables a balance between the suppression of crime in an effort to protect society, and, the protection of human rights pertaining to an individual in an effort to respect the dignity of a person. This thesis seeks to find a balance between these two competing interests in pursuance of the protection of human rights in an extradition context. This calls for the enhancement of international co-operation between states in order to combat crime and terrorism. Extradition can be utilised as a tool in achieving this aim. Extradition coupled with the non-derogable protection of human rights, facilitate the ability of states to meet their obligations under human rights law. Human rights law thus offers a legal guarantee for human rights and places the obligation on states to prohibit a certain kind of action and binds it to act in a particular manner, which enforces and upholds the prohibition of certain specified activities. This is explicitly stated in treaties, customary international law, bodies of principles and other sources of law. The right to life and the prohibition of torture is one of the prominent issues in this study. It is clearly depicted how the prohibition of torture creates no difficult in justifying a refusal to the extradition of a person who is reasonably expected to be subjected to torture. It is also discussed how human rights bars can be overcome if the requesting state offers diplomatic assurances to the requested state that the quality of the trial upon return safeguards the protection of human rights. Furthermore, this thesis focuses on these aspects in relationship to the antithesis of extradition, that is, irregular rendition. This study could not have focused on irregular rendition had it not gone into the reconciliation between extradition and human rights, so as to be able to illustrate the conspicuous differences between the lawful procedure of an extradition process which embraces the human rights principles and the unlawful procedure of irregular rendition.