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- Title
Why Countries Diverge over Extradition Treaties with China: The Executive Power to Extradite in Common and Civil Law Countries.
- Authors
LIPKOWITZ, NOAH E.
- Abstract
China has made a concerted effort for over a decade to conclude extradition treaties with developed countries that are popular "safe havens" for its fugitive officials and economic criminals. Chinese President Xi Jinping has placed these efforts at the forefront of Chinese foreign policy in recent years as part of his anticorruption campaign, invariably pressing the issue of extradition with these trade partners and their (largely) liberal democratic leaders. Nonetheless, China's extradition drive has attained mixed results. A number of developed civil law states have concluded treaties with China while their common law counterparts almost universally refuse to follow suit. This Article analyzes this pattern of divergent behavior and is the first to offer a legal explanation for it. It argues that the nature of executive authority to extradite and other branches' checks on that authority differ significantly in common and civil law systems. Differing policies regarding the extradition of nationals and evidentiary standards for extradition requests exacerbate these structural differences. These factors calibrate a state's threshold to enter into an extradition treaty, particularly with a controversial state like China. The geopolitically significant backdrop of China's extradition drive teases out the differences between common and civil law systems, broadly shedding light on the collective impact of these legal dissimilarities on state extradition practice at a time when many states are in the process of streamlining their extradition schemes to boost international law enforcement cooperation. Independent of its novel arguments, this Article also comprehensively catalogues and elaborates on factors (legal and non-legal) relevant to any state's decision to enter into an extradition treaty. This article will be of interest to scholars, governments, and others interested in how divergent extradition schemes influence state practice and, by extension, impact the efficacy of international extradition law, international legal cooperation, and individual rights protections.
- Subjects
EXTRADITION; TREATIES; XI, Jinping, 1953-; CIVIL law; CHINESE foreign relations, 1976-
- Publication
Virginia Journal of International Law, 2020, Vol 60, Issue 1, p440
- ISSN
0042-6571
- Publication type
Article