The Role for Human Rights Obligations in Canadian Extradition Law

Abstract

SummaryTo secure greater inter-state cooperation in criminal law enforcement, Canada has entered into a number of extradition treaties. Yet alongside this network of extradition treaties lies a network of human rights treaties to which Canada has also agreed to be bound. Given the inherently international nature of extradition, and the interconnection between Canada's human rights treaties and its obligations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, one would have thought that Canada's international human rights obligations might play some role in bolstering the protection afforded by the Charter to the rights of an individual facing extradition from Canada, even if the threshold for invoking the latter remains high. And yet, while a review of Canada's extradition jurisprudence for the past thirty years confirms that a role for human rights has emerged in Canadian extradition law, scant attention has been paid to Canada's international human rights treaty obligations as treaty obligations when deciding whether to extradite upon receiving a valid request. The author argues that if Canada's international human rights obligations were considered, along with Canada's domestic Charter obligations, greater guidance would be made available as to the appropriate balance of rights and obligations at stake, while also affording equal treatment to all of the treaty obligations relevant to extradition.