Prosecution of serious crimes of international concern has been few and far between before and even after the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002. Hope thus rests with the implementation of the international legal obligation for States to either extradite or prosecute such perpetrators among themselves or surrender them to a competent international criminal court. This obligation was considered by the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) which submitted its final report in 2014. Kittichaisaree, Chairman of the ILC Working Group on that topic, not only provides a guide to the final report, offering an analysis of the subject and a unique summary of its drafting history, he also covers important issues left unanswered by the report, including the customary international legal status of the obligation, the role of the universal jurisdiction, immunities of State officials, and impediments to the surrender of offenders to international criminal courts. Authoritative, encyclopaedic, and essential to those in the field, The Obligation to Extradite or Prosecute also offers practical solutions as to the road ahead.

The aut dedere aut judicare, or “extradite or prosecute” clause is shorthand for a range of clauses that are almost compulsory in international treaties criminalizing conduct, obliging a State to either extradite or prosecute one accused of the crime the subject of the treaty. The obligation has become increasingly central in the emerging legal regime against impunity and has a role in States’ armoury of international criminal enforcement mechanisms. Yet there has been little academic consideration of the sources of the principle, including whether it exists at customary international law, and the scope and operation of the obligation. While the topic is currently being considered by the International Law Commission, this paper seeks to provide some of the empirical research that has to date been missing and to identify the sources and scope of the obligation to extradite or prosecute. The views reflected in this paper are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations.

The emergence of a global community is accompanied by a realization that greater cooperation is essential to its welfare. This is particularly true in the area of crime prevention and control. The increase in international, transnational, transboundary and national crime has contributed to a genuine growth in the body of international criminal law. The most effective way to combat such crimes is for states to accept an obligation to try international criminal law offenders before their own courts or surrender them for trial before the courts of another state or an international court. Until such time as an effective system of international criminal justice is established, the duty to prosecute or extradite will remain the foundation for international criminal law enforcement. This book examines in detail the variety of international instruments which impose a duty to prosecute or to extradite. It asks how far this duty goes and whether one aspect of this obligation supersedes the other, and whether it can now be regarded as an obligation imposed by general international law. In discussing these questions, the book provides a highly illuminating account of the basic postulates of international criminal law and their relationship to competing visions of the nature of the international legal order. There is an evident need for international law to settle some of these questions. The ICJ, for example, needs to address the question in the case brought before it by Libya against the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Moreover, it will be a question of some significance with respect to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Lastly, the prospect of a permanent international criminal court presently before the United Nations, is, in part, dependent on the effectiveness of aut dedere aut judicare. The two authors who address these difficult questions have contributed to the advancement of international law in general, and international criminal law in particular. They have produced a book which is a balanced blend of scholarly research and legal analysis.

This book deals with the prosecution of core crimes and constitutes the first comprehensive analysis of the horizontal and vertical systems of enforcement of international criminal law and of their inter-relationship. It provides a global jurisprudential exposition in assessing the grounds for refusal of surrender to the International Criminal Court and of extradition to another State. It also offers insights into legal perspectives which improve the prevailing enforcement regimes of various models of criminal justice, including hybrid criminal tribunals, special criminal courts, judicial panels and partnerships, and other budding sui generis judicial and/or prosecutorial institutions. The book espouses a human rights law-oriented critique to the enforcement of domestic, regional and international criminal justice and is aimed at legal practitioners (prosecutors, defence lawyers, magistrates and judges), jurists, criminal justice experts, penologists, legal researchers, human rights activists and law students. Christopher Soler lectures Maltese criminal law, international criminal law and public international law at the University of Malta. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

This fully updated second edition of Jurisdiction in International Law examines the international law of jurisdiction, focusing on the areas of law where jurisdiction is most contentious: criminal, antitrust, securities, discovery, and international humanitarian and human rights law. Since F.A. Mann's work in the 1980s, no analytical overview has been attempted of this crucial topic in international law: prescribing the admissible geographical reach of a State's laws. This new edition includes new material on personal jurisdiction in the U.S., extraterritorial applications of human rights treaties, discussions on cyberspace, the Morrison case. Jurisdiction in International Law has been updated covering developments in sanction and tax laws, and includes further exploration on transnational tort litigation and universal civil jurisdiction. The need for such an overview has grown more pressing in recent years as the traditional framework of the law of jurisdiction, grounded in the principles of sovereignty and territoriality, has been undermined by piecemeal developments. Antitrust jurisdiction is heading in new directions, influenced by law and economics approaches; new EC rules are reshaping jurisdiction in securities law; the U.S. is arguably overreaching in the field of corporate governance law; and the universality principle has gained ground in European criminal law and U.S. tort law. Such developments have given rise to conflicts over competency that struggle to be resolved within traditional jurisdiction theory. This study proposes an innovative approach that departs from the classical solutions and advocates a general principle of international subsidiary jurisdiction. Under the new proposed rule, States would be entitled, and at times even obliged, to exercise subsidiary jurisdiction over internationally relevant situations in the interest of the international community if the State having primary jurisdiction fails to assume its responsibility.