It is good to know the best countries without extradition to US, UK, Canada, and Australia. This information could prove useful if you find yourself on the other side of the law.
Let’s start with the basics. In its simplest definition, extradition could be described as a process in which one jurisdiction asks to obtain a physical custody of a person who is charged with a certain crime or convicted of the crime, from another jurisdiction. This is applicable in country’s internal jurisdiction, but today we talk specifically about extradition between countries. In this case, the legal system of one country makes an extradition request to a legal system of another country. To regulate the practice in these cases, most countries sign extradition treaties. They can be bilateral and multilateral. Bilateral treaties are agreements between two countries, while multilateral include more than two parties. If two countries have an extradition treaty, that means the request for extradition will be likely approved if it meets all the requirements. Even if the countries don’t have a signed treaty, they can still make extradition requests, but the chance for them to be successful are smaller.
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Extradition treaties have conditions under which one country can accept an extradition request. Although these conditions can vary, the most important one is that the crime for which the requesting country asks extradition is a crime in the receiving country as well. There are other cases when a particular country can refuse to extradite a person. For example, there are numerous countries that refuse to extradite people who are charged with political crimes. Also, if there is a chance that the person will be sentenced to a death penalty, most European countries will decline the request. Same goes if there is a possibility that the requested person will have to endure torture or other acts of inhumane behavior. One more common practice is that the countries almost regularly deny requests which target their own citizens. One of the examples for this is a case of murder that happened in New Zealand. Xiao Zhen, Chinese native killed a cab driver in Auckland, New Zealand where he worked, only to leave the country and head to China. China refused to extradite Zhen and he was trialed in his native country, although the murder didn’t happen inside country’s borders. Before we wrap up the talk about extradition in general, it is important to mention law principle “Aut dedere aut judicare” which is closely tied to the subject. The principle means that if the country refuses the extradition request, then that same country has to prosecute the offender. Of course, this isn’t the practice in all countries, but be careful. If you are going to run away from a crime, you may not be off the hook completely. In case you still want to try your luck, check out these 10 Best Countries for American Fugitives.
Being among the biggest economic forces in the world the US, UK and Canada are well covered when it comes to extradition treaties. The United Kingdom has extradition treaties with most countries while Australia, on the other hand, formally has bilateral extradition agreements with 38 countries. Countries that are not on among these 38 are considered non-extradition countries and each request is considered separately, with Australia having no obligation to accept the extradition request even when it meets all the common conditions under the International Law.
For our list of best countries without extradition to US, UK, Canada, and Australia we took into consideration the countries that don’t have extradition treaties toward all 4 of them. We only managed to find the official list of extradition treaties for the United Kingdom. We used WFSA for the United States, Sydney Criminal Lawyers for Australia, while we had to turn to multiple forums for Canada. Since these were unofficial sources we manually checked each country, just in case. Our research showed that in 51 countries in the world you don’t have to be concerned about extradition to US, UK, Canada, or Australia. Unfortunately, the majority of these countries are in the parts of the Middle East and Africa which don’t have the best quality of life. In order to find where a person would feel the best, we ranked them according to Quality of Nationality Index developed by Henley & Partners. This index takes into consideration all the factors that could determinate the quality of life in a certain country, starting from economics and development to how are the natives of these countries seen by other nations. Although it may not reveal the full picture, it is one of few rankings that rank every country in the world. The countries that had the best Quality of Nationality Index entered our list. Let’s take a look at the list of best countries without extradition to US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
