Treaties and the Supreme Court

Abstract

HE recent case of Factor v. Laubenheimer' is apparently a denouement to the picturesque career of John (Jake, the Barber) Factor which the American public has followed with some interest for the past two years. Charged by the British government with having received from Broad Street, Limited, large sums of money aggregating £458,000, knowing the same to have been fraudulently obtained,2 Factor strenuously resisted extradition to Great Britain on the ground that the offense with which he was charged was not a crime in the place where he had taken refuge (Illinois). His counsel contended that an extraditable offense must be a crime both in the demanding country and in the place where the fugitive is found, and that the applicable treaty provisions, interpreted in the light of that principle, excluded his extradition. The question before the Court, therefore, by its own statement was one of the construction of the provisions of the applicable treaties in accordance with the principles governing the interpretation of international agreements.3 What are these principles to which the Court refers? Are they principles of customary or conventional international law, or are they self-imposed standards of construction? If they are self-imposed, have they been established in a series of precedents which has made them binding in future cases?