Three hundred years ago, few people cared about the murky past of new arrivals to the United States, and the countries they had left made few efforts to pursue them to their new home. Today with the growth of bureaucracy, telecommunications, and air travel, extradition has become a full-time business. But the public's knowledge of, and consequent concern about, extradition remains minimal, aroused from time to time by newspaper headlines, only to fade. In this readable and compelling history of extradition in America, Christopher Pyle remedies that ignorance. Using American constitutional law and drawing on a wealth of historical cases, he describes the collision of law and politics that occurs when a foreign country demands the surrender of individuals held to be terrorists by some and freedom fighters by others. He shows how U.S. policymakers have attempted to substitute deportation for extradition, and turn the surrender of a foreign national (or even an American citizen) into a political rather than a judicial process. Beginning with the New England Puritans' refusal to surrender to the "regicides" who had signed the death warrant of King Charles I, he traces the attitudes and ideologies that have shaped American extradition practice, culminating in the efforts by the Reagan and Bush administrations to turn the legal extradition process into an executive tool of state policy. Along the way we meet such legal luminaries as James Madison and John Stuart Mill, William Rehnquist and Oliver North, as well as pirates and fugitive slaves, anarchists and refugees, drug lords and runaway sailors. Woven throughout this story is the author's belief that current developments in extradition law ignore or actually violate the principles of individual liberty, due process, and humanity on which we claim our country was built. As he remarks in the Introduction, "Extradition involves the surrender of human beings--persons under the protection of our Constitution--to foreign regimes, many of which are unjust. This reality was well understood in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the United States was a refuge for the victims of European oppression, but it has been disregarded frequently in the twentieth century as we have sought to stem the tide of immigration and develop advantageous economic and political relations with autocratic regimes of every stripe." Author note: Christopher H. Pyle is Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College. He is the author of several books and Congressional reports and has frequently testified before Congress on the subject of extradition and deportation.

A novel and robust examination of all policy means and their lawfulness for recovering fugitives abroad via extradition or its alternatives.

The subject of "international extradition" is not independently taught in legal education programs around the world, yet extradition remains today the most significant form of mutual assistance in criminal matters between States. This book provides a concise and clear description of extradition law and procedure based on a number of key principles and concepts (double criminality, rule of speciality, assurances) drawn from domestic extradition statutes, bilateral and multilateral treaties. It then outlines 35 well-known extradition cases, in which suspects, accused and convicted persons fought the extradition requests by invoking certain grounds for refusal of surrender (human rights violations, unfairness of trial in the requesting country, excessive punishment, etc). For each of these cases, an outline of the facts, the outcome of the case, and the legal arguments of the parties is provided. The book is ideal for legal practitioners who wish to familiarise with the law and practice of extradition litigation around the world and to learn about the best available strategies to effectively assist clients in extradition cases.

The Law and Practice of Extradition provides an in-depth overview of extradition law and practice, providing students with an understanding of how key elements have been shaped by the state, the fugitive and the international community. The process of globalisation has offered huge opportunities for organised crime, both in terms of expansion of operations and the possibility to evade justice, confronting states with considerable challenges. The Law and Practice of Extradition addresses all key topics in this fast-evolving area, including extradition and international crimes, terrorism and human rights. This textbook is particularly suitable for master's and post-doctoral students with a basic background knowledge of international law, criminal law and international relations, and will interest legal practitioners who seek a better understanding of extradition.

Recent atrocities have ensured that terrorism and how to deal with terrorists legally and politically has been the subject of much discussion and debate on the international stage. This book presents a study of changes in the legal treatment of those perpetrating crimes of a political character over several decades. It most centrally deals with the political offence exception and how it has changed. The book looks at this change from an international perspective with a particular focus on the United States. Interdisciplinary in approach, it examines the fields of terrorism and political crime from legal, political science and criminological perspectives. It will be of interest to a broad range of academics and researchers, as well as to policymakers involved in creating new anti-terrorist policies.

Michael Ignatieff draws on his extensive experience as a writer and commentator on world affairs to present a penetrating account of the successes, failures, and prospects of the human rights revolution. Since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, this revolution has brought the world moral progress and broken the nation-state's monopoly on the conduct of international affairs. But it has also faced challenges. Ignatieff argues that human rights activists have rightly drawn criticism from Asia, the Islamic world, and within the West itself for being overambitious and unwilling to accept limits. It is now time, he writes, for activists to embrace a more modest agenda and to reestablish the balance between the rights of states and the rights of citizens. Ignatieff begins by examining the politics of human rights, assessing when it is appropriate to use the fact of human rights abuse to justify intervention in other countries. He then explores the ideas that underpin human rights, warning that human rights must not become an idolatry. In the spirit of Isaiah Berlin, he argues that human rights can command universal assent only if they are designed to protect and enhance the capacity of individuals to lead the lives they wish. By embracing this approach and recognizing that state sovereignty is the best guarantee against chaos, Ignatieff concludes, Western nations will have a better chance of extending the real progress of the past fifty years. Throughout, Ignatieff balances idealism with a sure sense of practical reality earned from his years of travel in zones of war and political turmoil around the globe. Based on the Tanner Lectures that Ignatieff delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2000, the book includes two chapters by Ignatieff, an introduction by Amy Gutmann, comments by four leading scholars--K. Anthony Appiah, David A. Hollinger, Thomas W. Laqueur, and Diane F. Orentlicher--and a response by Ignatieff.