Simplified Extradition: A Proposal for the Third Additional Protocol to the 1957 Council of Europe Convention

1. Background The European extradition system has become cumbersome, and has made its procedures complicated, difficult, lengthy, and expensive. Several factors have significantly contributed to such an unsatisfactory result; among them, definition of an extraditable offense, re-extradition to the third state, channels of communication, authentication of documents, and rule of specialty (specialty). The European Convention on Extradition (ECE), as amended by the two additional protocols thereto of 1975 and 1978, which dates from 1957, is indeed one of the oldest European treaties in the criminal law field and has a direct impact on individuals’ rights and freedoms. The need for the modernization of the legal instruments of the Council of Europe (CoE) in the criminal justice field in order to enhance international co-operation has become gradually more and more obvious especially with regard to the ECE. As early as 2002, this idea was articulated in a report prepared by a group of experts and presented to the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC)...(more)...