As you can see, I'm a veteran in the field of international criminal justice, having served on all these courts. I came to The Hague in the year 2000 for the Arrest Warrant case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and looking back at that period, it feels like these were the halcyon years of international criminal justice. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was up to speed, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The International Criminal Court (ICC) had been created. The Rome Statute was brand new. States were exercising universal jurisdiction. In the United Kingdom, we had the Pinochet case. So everything seemed to go in a very much forward, positive direction.

Can a person who has agreed to an out-of-court settlement for a certain offence in country A still be prosecuted for the same offence in country B? What if a person is found guilty of theft in country C and is subsequently prosecuted in respect of the same facts, but under the charge of swindling in country D? Suppose two persons are suspected of having set up a money-laundering scheme, which involves financial transactions in several countries. Can the offenders still be prosecuted in one country concerned, after they have been acquitted for moneylaundering in one of the other countries?

The human rights movement, which has had such a powerful impact on international law and relations in the post—World War II period, has in recent years turned its attention to extradition. Treaties, executive acts and judicial decisions on extradition have all been affected. At the same time, transnational and international crime has increased. The international community has responded by creating new institutions and expanding the network of bilateral and multilateral treaties designed to outlaw transnational crime, promote extradition, and authorize mutual assistance. Inevitably, there is a tension between the claim for the inclusion of human rights in the extradition process and the demand for more effective international cooperation in the suppression of crime, which resembles the tension in many national legal systems between the “law and order” and human rights approaches to criminal justice. As in domestic society, it is necessary to strike a balance between the two so as to establish a system in which crime is suppressed and human rights are respected. This was stressed by the European Court of Human Rights in the leading case on extradition and human rights, Soering v. United Kingdom, when it stated: