Extradition and globalization

Abu Ahsan has been held in jail for six years in the United Kingdom for allegedly running Azzam Publications, a jihadi website. However, the site was hosted on American internet service providers, which is grounds for possible extradition. (You can read the whole story here.) "Extradition" refers to the act of a country surrendering an alleged criminal to another country for trial. In this case, extradition is controversial because some Europeans are not convinced that the United States will treat Ahsan fairly.

The concept of extradition is not a new one, but its growth in notoriety is directly proportional to the rate of globalization. The advent of commercial air flight in the mid-twentieth century, for instance, has made it easier for criminals to evade the law of their own countries. As extradition becomes more commonplace, it becomes naturally less "cut-and-dried" and more bureaucratic in nature; the Roman Polanski sexual abuse case, now thirty-five years in the making, is a heavily-publicized example of this.

The United States has formal extradition treaties with many countries around the world. They are colored light blue in the map below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_extradition_treaties_countries.PNG

The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), which pledges allegiance to the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, is the primary international organization facilitating extradition, among other cooperative efforts across the globe. As borders continue to blur in the twenty-first century, organizations like INTERPOL will grow in significance as justice becomes a more global than national issue.

- Luke