Hacker News Reader

Comment by nix23 | Hacker News Reader

I really don't get it why the UK is even allowed to extradite a citizen of Australia to the US. Shame on Australia too for not protecting it's citizens.

View on HN

While I would prefer that Assange not be extradited to the USA on the specific circumstances of that case, extradition treaties in general seem reasonable?

If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances?

Barring civil rights problems, corruption, etc (e.g., some very specific exceptions), it seems in general that we should want to allow extradition so that justice can be met. No?

True it's not a easy question, but for example in Switzerland you cannot extradite someone if the punishment is harder then in Switzerland, that prevents that someone is send to a country with death-sentence, let's say for murder. But yeah it's not that easy and contracts exist.

Ban on the death penalty is quite possibly true here too (it would have been under EU treaties, I didn't find a quick statement how the situation is now exactly).

The problem with your analogy is the extradition treaties extend far beyond the red herring of "surely you want a murder to get justice right"

This is not far removed from "Think of the children" style rhetoric that is used in the US to pass all kinds of oppressive laws and regulations

Everyone can generally agree that having a murderer stand trail is a good thing, but what about someone that illegal distributes a file to one nation thus committing a "crime" in that nation.

What about other less extreme crimes, which is more often what extradition treaties are used for, not murder as your strawman desires it to be

That was simply a reply to a specific question asked in the previous comment.

Did Julian Assange commit his alleged crimes while in the US?

This scenario is more like person who's never left B gets shipped off to C because he said something C didn't like.

Given the action (as I understand it [0]) involved communicating with Americans in America, the muder-analogy you replied to would be a person from country A, living in country B, firing a gun over a border and killing someone in country C, surely?

[0] """conspiracy contrary to Title 18 of the US Code (the “U.S.C.”), section 371. The offence alleged to be the object of the conspiracy was computer intrusion (Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1030)""" was the actual phrase used

You don't need to be in a country to commit crimes in that country. A lot of financial crime wouldn't be a prosecuted in that case.

That seems incorrect, you can be prosecuted in your country of origin just fine for stealing from or hacking foreigners

True, that Country can make a Penalty application and your getting prosecuted in your country.

We'll set aside for a moment the fact that a country like Nigeria hasn't even HAD laws against hacking on their books:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-nigerian-law-means-seven-y...

There are countless examples of state sponsored hacking. There's no way the actor would be punished in the country of origin if their country of origin was not only OK with their actions but supporting them. Does that mean whoever did it should be free to travel anywhere they want without repercussions? You're essentially saying that countries are no longer allowed to enforce their laws on any foreign citizens... that seems EXTREMELY short sighted.

Furthermore, how would the country of origin even prosecute when the victim wasn't one of their citizens. What are the mental gymnastics to say that your citizens can't be prosecuted anywhere but their country of origin...b ut the victims have to what? Travel to your country to get justice? If a nigerian scammer is caught, you expect a US citizen to fly to nigeria on their own dime to try make their case?

Extradition requires dual criminality. If you can extradite you can prosecute the offence locally.

I don't think that's universally true? E.g. reading the judgement here, when evaluating the charges regarding the conspiracy to obtain national security documents, does not ask "is stealing US national security documents against UK law", but rather "if Manning had been a UK army member, targeting the UK, would this have been against UK law", finding that would be the case and thus accepting the conspiracy charges as fulfilling dual criminality.

But you couldn't prosecute Assange in the UK for conspiracy to steal documents from the US and damage done to US national security, but at best for damage done to UK national security through that.

(It's possible I am misunderstanding something?)

What you are arguing is moral myopia.

Countries are sovereign, a Nigerian person living in Nigeria is only beholden to laws of Nigeria.

In your world, you can accuse someone who lives in Mongolia of a crime that doesn't even exist is Mongolian legal system, such as some peculiarities of US copyright or packaging of lobsters. You seem to think they should be flown to the US to be tried at your convenience to in a language they don't speak, in a legal system they don't understand at their expense?

You could prosecute him in Australia for hacking in whatever form it broke Australian law. How can any non-US citizen be held responsible for some vague 'damage to US national security' if they have nothing to do with the US? Why should a hypothetical person living in Nigeria be responsible for US, UK, Russian, Saudi, Israeli and everyone else's national security?

I mean, if I make war on a foreign country, I don't think "I'm don't live there" is a valid defense against retaliation.

Laws and customs of war are not about justice, presumption of innocence, due process or fair trial. I have no idea why you would compare the two, to me this speak to lack of clarity you have on this issue.

An individual can't 'make war', only countries can do that.

We are talking about an allegation (not proven!) of a crime, highly political in nature to boot, not 'retaliation'

I agree there a valid cases for such a rule: In a world that has global communication and logistics available for practically everyone, you can potentially cause a lot of harm in a country without ever stepping foot in it.

On the other hand, this is also a very obvious slippery slope if now the jurisdiction of any country were to be applied globally.

What if a country abuses this to get rid of political opponents, to gain an economic advantage or to cover up its own crimes? (See e.g. the recent threats from China about showing solidarity with the Hong Kong movement even outside of China. See the US covering up war crimes.)

What happens if two countries have mutually exclusive laws? (e.g. at least for some time, it was a crime in Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian genocide while in France it was a crime to not acknowledge it)

If we don't want this to devolve simply to "rule of the strongest", more detailed rules are needed.

That's why you should just make extradition contracts with country's that have a fair and ~humane justice system.

Service related activities are treated a little different.

Service is considered to be delivered in the country where the service beneficiary is.

That's why financial services cannot be delivered cross border, without legal approval in the "destination" country.

On the other hand sales of goods is something that happens in the seller's country - that's how companies in countries without consumer protection can just tell you to STFU on thing you bought from them.

A lot of financial crime does not get prosecuted

Bin Laden did not go to the USA to commit his crimes.

Bin Laden had no court hearing. He was killed by a special commando. It really surprises me that anyone thinks that this has something todo with justice.

BTW: No saying it's right or wrong, but it's definitely something else than justice or a Curt-order.

Well, Obama claimed he sent in a team to kill him and dump his body in the ocean, during an election year, even though the French intelligence agencies said he was probably dead for at least 7 years. That seal team also died in a helicopter crash later, but it wasn't "the same seal team."

Honestly I don't understand how Americans still trust our news sources today.

>dump his body in the ocean

Yeah that's a bit crazy if you ask me.

Crazy? That's literally what they did.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-...

The post was claiming that the raid never happened and articles like the one you read are propaganda.

Succinct..agreed.

> French intelligence agencies said he was probably dead for at least 7 years

All I have been able to find was 1 French newspaper publishing what it claimed was a French intelligence report that simply noted that Saudi intelligence agencies believe bin Laden had died in 2006. The report seems to have been immediately noted by the French president as not being confirmed. Furhtermore, in 2010 a recording of bin Laden threatening France was confirmed as genuine by the French Foreign Ministry, showing that French intelligence services still considered it at least possible that he was still alive.

And US presidents have been warm and fuzzy in the White House when ordering killing of thousands of completely innocent people...

So you can stop with the "justice angle" on that one.

Some countries (France at least I think) have a constitutional bar on extradition of citizens from their own territory and instead allow citizens to be prosecuted domestically for crimes committed abroad (but according to the standards of domestic law). This is a logical alternative I think although it typically doesn't extend to a bar on the extradition of foreigners to either their home country or third countries so that system wouldn't have helped him here.

This is not the case with the European Arrest Warrant anymore. France only retained the right for the accused to spend the eventual sentence in France.

Do you know what happens if a penalty doesn't exist in France? E.g. Sweden cannot sentence people to a 40 years prison sentence. Could a German court sentence me to something like that and send me home to Sweden for 40 years?

The European arrest warrant, as other extradition agreements have a clause that they only work in cases where the offence is a criminal act in both countries. A famous recent case is Carles Puigdemont who was arrested in Germany by request on the Spanish government for "rebellion" but a German court decided that what he did (fight for Catalan independence) isn't a criminal offence in Germany and that he only could be indighted for misuse of public funds.

"""On 12 July 2018 the higher court in Schleswig-Holstein [Germany] confirmed that Puigdemont could not be extradited by the crime of rebellion, but may still be extradited based on charges of misuse of public funds. Puigdemont's legal team said they would appeal any decision to extradite him. Ultimately, though, Spain dropped its European arrest warrant, ending the extradition attempt. Puigdemont was once again free to travel, and chose to return to Belgium.""" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carles_Puigdemont

Double-criminality is not an absolute requirement for the execution of an EAW. The most common categories of crime are explicitly excluded from such a requirement - precisely because the whole point of the EAW is to speed up extradition of the most common cases. It just happened that Spain attempted to prosecute Puigdemont for a crime that did not fall in any of those categories. That decision was mostly a sign that the Spanish government that initiated the process was not very competent on this subject.

I’ve not read the whole treaty, but according to Wikipedia only the Dutch enjoy a system where the sentence has to match what an equivalent Dutch sentence should be. So I would assume that yes, Germany could convict you and send you to Swedish jail for 40+ years. But to be fair there are a number of grey areas, depending on the details of each case. It’s difficult to harmonize 27 criminal systems...

European Arrest Warrant has a strong protective clause and a court that oversees European Justice. (ECHR)

It depends on what type of crime you're talking about. For common criminals, then sure, but for example, most Western countries have laws or constitutional provisions against extradition for political offences.

Espionage is 100% a political offence, yet...

A lot of things are political in nature.

But extraditions are mostly issues of diplomacy, not justice.

There is a good rule when dealing with government enforcement of laws. Everyone must be equally treated under the law, it must be safe against misuse, and failure by the government must be punished harder than the offense itself.

Extradition cases sadly fails all three of those. They are extremely selective enforced, there are few safeguards, and generally no punishment against officials that fails to uphold the few safeguards that exist. The whole ordeal is intertwined with diplomatic relations and politics of both national and international nature.

This is my first time thinking through this deeply, so I'm open to changing my mind.

> If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances?

Perhaps in certain circumstances. But in general, this is a dispute between A and B. C should let those two countries handle it. I.e., deport the citizen back to A, their home country. [edited: s/extradite/deport]

Consider: in many countries, certain forms of speech are illegal. I shouldn't need to worry that I may have said something illegal in China in order to visit South Korea. It's hard enough to learn all the laws in the country I am visiting, let alone every country that directly or indirectly has an extraction treaty.

The one scenario where I could see this being reasonable is within a bloc of countries that have free travel between and a somewhat unified set of laws, and only for breaking one of those bloc-level laws.

I don't think your ideas are unreasonable, though this would have to be governed by any existing treaties, of course. In practice, however, I think that, to use your example, South Korea will act based on its relationship with China rather than your relationship with China. So, if KOR agrees with you that free speech is more important than how China might react to non-extradition, then KOR may not extradite you. However, if KOR thinks that they must turn you over to preserve their relationship, then they might. Again, all of this is of course hypothetical and in the real world should be defined by treaties.

I'll just note that in your example, if C is just trying to stay neutral and acting of its own accord, then the correct term would be that C would deport the suspect to A rather than extradite the suspect to A, unless A is seeking extradition in its own right.

Yes, I am totally agreed that the real world is often very messy. It's oh-so-easy to say how things should work when we can conveniently ignore all the other complexities of international diplomacy. All of this is hypothetical. Including, I am not trying to come to a conclusion on Assange in particular, just form opinions on how things ought to work — and from there, of course, there will be compromises.

---

I am imagining a scenario like the UN countries all agreeing on a common standard for extradition.

The guiding principle I'm working off of is that if B and C share the same law against X, then extradition is reasonable. The fuzzy line is where B and C both outlaw X, but each have their own laws against it.

On one hand, it is reasonable. If B and C both outlaw murder, then C should extradite the murderer, because the citizen can't claim ignorance, nor can they claim that "murder isn't illegal here in C."

On the other hand, I have trouble seeing how you'd write a consistent standard here. Sure, it's easy to equivocate premeditated murder across different laws, but what about even manslaughter? Then it requires both countries to have the same definition of negligence, etc.

So basically, the only form of extradition treaty that doesn't seem to pose an unreasonable burden on tourists is, "Here is a set of laws that are enforced in both B and C. If you break these laws in B and then flee to C (or vice versa), you are still under jurisdiction of the law you broke, so you may be extradited."

In practice, that might look like CHN and KOR signing a treaty that unifies their libel law. Then, if you commit libel against someone in CHN while in KOR, you may be extradited. This is quite reasonable, since a tourist would be expected to learn KOR libel law before travelling there.

> I'll just note that in your example, if C is just trying to stay neutral and acting of its own accord, then the correct term would be that C would deport the suspect to A rather than extradite the suspect to A, unless A is seeking extradition in its own right.

Thanks, edited.

It would seem more logical for the person to be extradited from C to A, and then A to B.

Australian governments would easily send their own citizens to foreign countries they never been to, for non violence offences like copyright infringement.

UK is way better than Australia in terms of bill of rights, etc.

Because Julian Assange was on UK territory, not Australian.

Yes and? Australia should have asked the UK that he is extradited to them (and prosecuted under Australian Law) and not to a third party (with a possible death sentence).

Espionage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_Unit...

As an Aussie, sadly our politicians are a bunch of cowards.

Far cry from just years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYbY45rHj8w

That's not how extradition works, ever. Yes, many countries have extra protections against extraditing their own citizens, but those only apply while those citizens reside there.

Otherwise there would be a booming naturalization business for some less-scrupulous nations.

In France it often does, and in other country's too, like a trade...China and the US trade allot of "bad boys".

>some less-scrupulous nations

Like the US, where you can buy your "out of prison" Card?

Do you have an example of country A asking France for permission before extraditing a French citizen who was not wanted for crimes in France to country B?

It's written in German, a bit different and even more complex:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/auslieferungs-gesuch/2803478

Argentina asked Switzerland to extradite Jean Bernard Lasnaud for smuggling Weapons to Ecuador and Croatia (he's French), and why Argentinia? Because the former President Carlos Menem and other Politicians where involved in it.

As an example, France would ask A if he can extradited to France and prosecuted there, even when let's say the crime was in Country B. The US did something like that with Otto Warmbier:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier

That whole thing is often not National or International Law but Diplomatic (especially with someone like Assange)

> Argentina asked Switzerland to extradite Jean Bernard Lasnaud

That's Argentina asking Switzerland to extradite a French citizen to Argentina for crimes committed under Argentinian law. The article does not say that France was asked for their opinion or permission.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier

That's the US asking North Korea to release a US citizen jailed there for a crime against North Korean law. Extradition does not enter the picture at all.

Allowed by whom?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com