The Prosecute/Extradite Dilemma: Concurrent Criminal Jurisdiction and Global Governance

Adam Abelson
Vol. 16
January 2012
Page 1

In an increasingly mobile and interconnected world, national criminal laws interact transnationally through choices between extradition and prosecution in individual cases. The prosecute/extradite dilemma is a critical site of global governance – a decentralized site of interaction between national criminal laws that shapes how national and international interests are articulated and mediated. While criminal laws reflect a state‟s fundamental norms, effective global governance requires a normative assessment of when a state should – and more crucially, when it should not – seek to further those norms when multiple countries have a basis for applying their criminal laws to particular conduct. This article offers a conceptual framework for such an assessment, with particular emphasis on extraterritorial application of U.S. criminal laws.

View Full Article