Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

Acts of international terrorism directed against civilians, whether perpetrated by governments or liberation movements, pose serious threats to world public order. Unwarranted, seemingly senseless bombings of public places, airplanes, or embassies cause needless loss of hundreds of lives and massive property damage. These activities threaten human rights and democratic values as much as government suppression of dissident views. Commentators have thus challenged international terrorist activities, whether perpetrated by individuals or by governments, as being beyond the scope of traditional human dissent or revolution in quest of liberty.

The desire to bring terrorists to justice, however, often conflicts with the desire to provide asylum for political dissidents. The line of demarcation between protected political acts and insidious terrorist behavior is finely drawn and may be blurred. Consequently, terrorists may invoke the political offense exception to their advantage in United States proceedings for their extradition. Recently the United States attempted to remedy this situation by reforming existing extradition legislation to more narrowly define the political offense exception and to place the determination of this exception exclusively in the hands of the executive branch.

Having failed in this effort, in 1985 the United States unsuccessfully attempted to accomplish similar goals in its relations with one state through the development of the U.S.-U.K. Supplementary Extradition Treaty,' which consisted of revisions of the extradition treaty currently in effect with the United Kingdom. The objective of this original Supplementary Treaty was to enhance law enforcement efforts to combat terrorism by severely narrowing the nature of offenses excludable under the political offense exception, so that terrorists who commonly commit the excludable offenses could be brought to justice in the requesting country.

Critics of the original Supplementary Treaty challenged both the provisions of the treaty as well as the hasty attempt to forcibly push the treaty through the Senate.7 As a result of political pressures from within and without Congress, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on the Supplementary Treaty on August 1, 1985, September 18, 1985, and October 22, 1985. Given the major controversy surrounding the attempt to effectively eliminate the political offense exception in the extradition process and to make provisions of the Supplementary Treaty apply retroactively to those whose extradition had already been denied by the courts, the original Supplementary Treaty remained in committee during the balance of 1985.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee considered the original Supplementary Treaty in April and June of 1986, discussing and rejecting several amendments." After much effort, the Committee prepared a compromise proposal for the Supplementary Treaty that was presented to the Senate in July, 1986. Following two days of debate and discussion, the Senate agreed to a resolution of ratification for the compromise Supplementary Treaty.

The original Supplementary Treaty would have effectively eliminated the political offense exception, minimized the role of the judiciary in the extradition process, and enabled the executive branch to decide extradition issues on its own.11 In contrast, the compromise Supplementary Treaty attempts to balance individual rights with the fight against terrorism and expands the judicial role in the extradition process beyond that provided in the earlier version. Whether or not the compromise Supplementary Treaty will effectively bring terrorists to justice is unclear; however, the provisions of the Treaty pose problems that must be addressed.

This article describes the political offense exception as interpreted in three recent United States court cases involving the extradition of members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army [PIRA], outlines the provisions of both versions of the Supplementary Treaty, and examines the implications of the historic compromise Supplementary Treaty in light of the balance between individual rights and international world public order.

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