Senate Foreign Relations Committee Approves U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty

On September 7, 2006, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations approved the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty, bringing the U.S. ratification process closer to completion. Signed in 2003, the treaty now moves for consideration in the full Senate, where leaders expect to ratify it before the end of the year. In recent months the failure of the U.S. Senate to expedite the ratification process has been controversial in Britain, especially in the context of the extradition of three former NatWest bankers to the U.S. to answer fraud-related charges in the Enron cases.