Will EU citizens get justice?

Human rights campaigners are concerned about the scope of soon-to-be-ratified extradition agreements penned in the aftermath of 9/11. Judith Crosbie reports.

Two treaties signed between the EU and the US in 2003 aimed at making transatlantic extraditions easier and improving legal assistance will, it seems, finally enter into force this year.

The US Senate has begun hearings on the treaties while just six EU member states have yet to ratify them.

The treaties were negotiated in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US and they were hailed as milestones in EU-US judicial co-operation.

Both sides have pointed to the increased number of extraditable offences covered by the new extradition treaty, involving any offence that carries a sentence of more than one year’s imprisonment. Simpler documents will speed up the legal process. So too will the setting up of direct contacts between the relevant authorities.

The mutual legal assistance agreement will give police access to bank accounts in the respective jurisdictions for serious crime including terrorism, organised crime or financial crime. Joint investigation teams can also be set up under an agreement which will increase practical co-operation, say EU and US officials.

In June 2003 John Ashcroft, the then US attorney general said that the agreements would help the EU and US fight serious crime and would "demonstrate in the clearest terms our common desire to provide our citizens with the greatest possible security".

Franco Frattini, the European commissioner for justice, freedom and security, has urged member states to ratify the treaty to give European authorities greater crime-fighting tools.

The treaties will complement and to some extent harmonise bilateral agreements that the US already has with individual EU states on the extradition of suspects.

But for human rights groups some unresolved issues could compromise the rights of European suspects.

Amnesty International is concerned that in light of controversy over suspects held at Guántanamo Bay, the extradition treaty should give European states the right to refuse extradition on the grounds of a right to a fair trial. "Trust in the US guaranteeing fair trial cannot be unqualified. As Amnesty International has pointed out repeatedly, in the search for justice for the atrocities of 11 September, the US continues to violate its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law standards, including its duties to uphold standards of fair trial and to protect against arbitrary detention," an Amnesty paper warns.

The group also takes issue with a clause in the treaty which states that EU countries "may grant extradition on the condition that the death penalty shall not be imposed". According to Amnesty this "leaves an unacceptable margin of discretion with regard to conditioning and refusing extradition in the face of the death penalty".

Others believe that the controversy over extraordinary renditions and illegal CIA activity in Europe puts into question transatlantic judicial co-operation. "The question is, whether the US bothers to go through with the extradition treaty or just snatches suspects off the street?" says Sarah Ludford, a UK Liberal Democrat MEP.

The prospect of the extradition treaty coming into force is likely to cause some worry in the US since European judges have been quick to issue arrest warrants for individuals that the US would never contemplate handing over. In October 2005, a Spanish judge ordered the arrest of three US soldiers involved in an incident in Baghdad in which two journalists were killed. In June the same year an Italian judge ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for the kidnapping and abduction of an Egyptian cleric in Milan.

Florian Geyer, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, says that, from the European perspective, successful court cases in the US to establish rights for prisoners, including those held in Guántanamo Bay, should demonstrate that the US has a robust judicial system. "In the end in the US the justice system does work. It is easy to say the Americans are bad but the Bush administration has lost ground in many court cases," he says.

Whether enough trust has been built up, following the controversies of the "war on terror" to allow for the smooth implementation of the two new treaties, may soon be put to the test.

EU ratification

Austria ✓

Belgium 2008

Bulgaria ✓

Czech Republic ✓

Denmark ✓

Germany ✓

Estonia ✓

Greece 2008

Spain ✓

France ✓

Ireland 2008

Italy 2008

Cyprus ✓

Latvia ✓

Lithuania ✓

Luxembourg ✓

Hungary ✓

Malta ✓

Netherlands 2008

Poland ✓

Portugal ✓

Romania 2008

Slovenia ✓

Slovakia ✓

Finland ✓

Sweden ✓

UK ✓

Human rights campaigners are concerned about the scope of soon-to-be-ratified extradition agreements penned in the aftermath of 9/11. Judith Crosbie reports.