A Brief Review of U.S.-U.K. Extradition Under the Extradition Act 2003 From a Human Rights Perspective

Since January 2004, any extradition request made to or by the United Kingdom must be dealt with under the Extradition Act 2003 (the “EA”). The EA brought in radical changes to U.K. extradition law and procedure. One of its main purposes was to implement the 2003 U.K.-U.S. Extradition Treaty (although the U.S. did not implement the Treaty until September 2006). The legislation was brought in by the Blair government in a bid to speed up and simplify extradition procedures in a post-9/11 world where criminal conduct was becoming increasingly cross-border and multi-jurisdictional and serious crimes such as terrorism, people trafficking, internet pornography, money laundering and large-scale fraud were becoming ever more “globalized.” Within EU Member states, extradition had already been similarly speeded up and streamlined with the introduction of the European Arrest Warrant system, which is preserved under the EA. The new regime was also interpreted as a response to criticism of the way the U.K. government handled the Spanish authorities’ request to extradite General Pinochet.