Talk:Rendition (law)

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This article was split from Rendition. See Talk:Rendition. --Dhartung | Talk 07:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

This seems like Original Research, or I'm confused (which is possible, but in that case the article needs some fixing up). In one sentence: what's the difference between "rendition" and extradition? If there is no difference, why are they two articles? Tazmaniacs 21:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

All right, if I believe the "extradition" entry: "As between nations, extradition is regulated by treaties. As between states or other political subdivisions on a domestic level, extradition is more accurately known as rendition." Thus, rendition is mainly a US concept (or are there any other examples) and there is absolutely no reason to have in this article a section on "international rendition", since that's called... extradition. The theme of extraordinary rendition is another matter, let's not mix up everything. Tazmaniacs 21:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Tazmaniacs, as the main author of the article, I should answer. Put simply, rendition is the extrajudicial transfer of persons (and not necessarily extraconstitutional). Rendition between states existed under the Constitution and under US law, and is explicitly separated from extradition under US case law. International renditions which were not extraordinary also exist. The concept of extraordinary rendition, however, is a largely US-driven concept. The reason I created the article is that it was, as written, only about extraordinary rendition, and had no information about the concept as it existed in US history prior to the Achille Lauro actions, such as the important fugitive slave laws -- the most prominent type.

I concede that based on 2007 Wikipedia standards it does not cite references directly enough, so I've switched the tags, and I would be happy to help (or get help) improving the article with proper citations. I would also concede (looking at my work today) that the article has only a weak global view, but that was one of those things I was hoping would grow later and hasn't.

There are problems with anything involving international law because most of it is unwritten. I've scouted out a few sources on Google Books that might help, though. --Dhartung | Talk 07:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Here, for example, is the UK equivalent of Tony Snow discussing rendition as it is understood by the British government:

Asked what he meant by rendition, the PMOS said that rendition in terms of the way in which the United States had applied it was the process of taking prisoners from one jurisdiction to another. This was a process that had been applied by the United States over many years and over many administrations....

Put to him, for the sake of clarity, that rendition was the process of taking someone from one jurisdiction to another, not extradition; as such the difference between extradition and rendition was that there was no legal proceeding in the host country, the PMOS said it was not a UK process and so he would not get into definitions.

This shows a, that the concept is understood in other countries, and b, that some don't do it (or at least say they don't). You can't have an international rendition without two countries being involved, ipso facto. Another source, from a briefing to the Scottish Parliament on the extraordinary renditions scandal, writes

Non-extraordinary rendition is a broad term referring to any movement of people or property between jurisdictions, an example of which would be extradition. Extra-ordinary rendition refers to the practice of moving people extra-judicially between jurisdictions.

which I think sums up the introduction to the article (the broader view, not the one I articulated; but perhaps my understanding of "extrajudicial" is not precise). --Dhartung | Talk 07:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response, Dhartung. I still don't understand, however, the difference between "rendition" and "extradition". The Scottish source simply makes of it a broad term, of which the main (and sole?) example is extradition. The first quote, I may have some problems understanding it, but seems to equate rendition with extraordinary rendition. I think we should keep the more precise sense of "rendition in a domestic state" as in the federal laws concerning slaves, and send for international purposes to extradition on one hand, and extraordinary rendition on the other hand. Except if you see a third, international, sense? Let's not enter speculation about other countries than the US engaging in ER: it is most possible, in fact, current investigations seems to suggests that European intelligence agencies collaborate with the CIA in the ER program. But we're still talking about ER... Tazmaniacs 23:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

PS: I really don't understand the deal with the Achille Lauro case. The entry says that the hijackers, once captured, were flown to a US military base in Sicily on an Egyptian airliner, from where they were handed out to Italy. But it doesn't explain with any more precision: what is an extradition? if not, in what sense did it differs from an extradition (and thus qualify as "non-extraordinary rendition"? I can't understand what kind of legal rendition there is, concerning international affairs, apart of extradition. Tazmaniacs 23:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem probably arose because US Navy arrested the hijackers on international waters and then brought them to a NATO base located on Italian territory. I am no expert in judicial matters, but I suppose that there was some kind of judicial vacuum, as the US Navy simply arrested them not because they were in charge of that, but because someone had to do that. But did they do it in the name of the US? Were they any warrant? I doubt so, it was not a police operation, but a military operation. Aren't we confusing here a military operation with standard judicial procedures? Furthermore, it says that the US have practiced much more "renditions" (whatever that is) since this famous case. Any other examples? It would be surely helpful to understand what this is all about... Tazmaniacs 23:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

"Judicial vacuum" is a good point you raise. Rendition historically operates where there is such a vacuum, such as no established treaty of extradition. (No such permanent treaties existed until 1842.)

The US version of "non-extraordinary" rendition beginning with the Achille Lauro case involved an "arrest" in international airspace, intended to bring hijackers to trial. This is sometimes called "rendition to justice". It included extraterritorial arrests under universal jurisdiction such as the 1987 capture of Fawaz Yunis, which the FBI calls its first rendition to justice. The US created the term (or adopted it from the media, by one account) "extraordinary rendition" to describe the cases where someone was arrested/abducted (depending on view) in one country and transferred to another country for interrogation -- that is, they are not charged with a crime, there is no involvement of the host country's judiciary, and they are bound over to another country's custody irrespective of being charged or tried. The idea is apparently that the person never sets foot on US soil, thus never has a chance to invoke habeas corpus. This is what makes it "extraordinary".

Because extradition is covered by treaties, there are procedures and oversight and definitions of extraditable crimes and rules of evidence. A rendition bypasses all that, and is to many observers unlawful for that reason alone. (Extraordinary rendition is worse in many ways because it is presumed to deliver someone to be tortured or held without criminal charges.)

To answer one question you seem to have, when I titled the section "International rendition" it wasn't to imply broad usage of the practice, it was simply to separate renditions that crossed international boundaries from interstate ones.

I agree there need to be more and better examples, so that's an area to be worked on. I'm just getting up to speed rereading the article and some sources after not touching this for many a month. --Dhartung | Talk 08:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, so I imagine you would consider the abduction of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 (?) a case of (ordinary) rendition? A precedent to the US execution of such acts, which as far as we know started with the Achille Lauro case, would then be Israel's hunt for Nazi war criminals? As an aside: you said that ER is a procedure which never "engages" US territory (meaning that the arrested people - who, by the way, are not necessarily suspected of anything, other than detaining important information for US intelligence agencies). Is it an important characteristic of ER? Have they been no examples of people arrested on US territory, or who have transited through US territory, and were then ER to third-party countries? (by "arrested", I don't think we should include any judicial sense to it, as, except if I don't understand the use of this word, it does not necessarily entails legal procedures; or would you refuse to use an expression such as: "the police arrested Jews during the Vel'd'hiv raid and then had them interned in Drancy"?) Thanks for your attention Tazmaniacs 18:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, one of the sources I've found discusses the Eichmann case in the context of "rendition to justice", as a stalking horse. Certainly the doctrine of universal jurisdiction owes much to the Israeli position. Some of your further questions about extraordinary rendition are best directed to the Talk page of that article; I'm just using the explanation the USDOJ has given. As far as arrest/abduction, I think pointing out that there are differences of opinion (i.e. an illegal arrest is effectively an abduction), as the recent Italy case has shown. As for the final question, I am really uncertain what your point is. It seems off-topic. --Dhartung | Talk 03:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, so we seem to reach some definition which would distinguish from both ER and extradition, something going like: "Rendering is the process, for a state, of capturing an individual outside of its national juridiction and territory, in order to bring him to court in the relevant state. It thus operates in a sort of judicial vacuum, as it is neither extradition, which is a judicial exchange of prisoners between two states, nor extraordinary rendition, in which the detainee is not brought before a court and whose very arrest remains secret." ??? I think I've stumbled into a similar process on this article from Dana Priest: "The CIA brings money from its classified and ever-growing 'foreign liaison' account — it has paid to transport some of France's suspects from abroad into Paris for legal imprisonment' and its global eavesdropping capabilities and worldwide intelligence service ties." France, on the other hand, "brings its harsh laws, surveillance of radical Muslim groups and their network in Arab states, and its intelligence links to its former colonies. [1]". Although she doesn't clearly states the word, I think we may safely assume that these arrests are not very legal, and that the suspects in question only enter the judicial process only in Paris, can't we? Concerning Adolf Eichmann, than this is a famous example which should be add. My last question, relating to the Vel'd'hiv, had no specific intent other than asking you if the verb "arrest", in English, necessarily entails a judicial process. I know that in US imaginary, "arrest" will probably go with the police officer telling the guy his rights (which is a legal request specific to US; other countries don't proceed like that, they just arrest suspected criminals, and later tell them their rights), so maybe that's why one would conflate "arrest" with a judicial protest. But, according to me (sic :), at least to my use of the word, "arrest" does not necessarily entails any legal procedure: it only design the procedure of capturing someone, which may be legal or not. Maybe this sounds like a strange question, I don't know... Anyway, I think I can take out the merge template, and we just need to work out a bit more the article... Tazmaniacs 05:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

(Backing out the indents for convenience) OK, but I don't think your definition suffices for all uses of the word, only for the US "renditions to justice" program. Historical renditions have included activity that is more like extradition or deportation. The situation like September 12, 2001 or so when the US demanded that Afghanistan "hand over" bin Laden was very like many of the historical examples of the term's usage (e.g. once the Pope apparently renditioned/rendered up a US deserter serving in his army without waiting for the US to even ask). Afghanistan, for its part, insisted that the US needed to formally extradite him (there was no bilateral treaty, though). My point, such as it is, is that rendition as a process had a history between nations, was almost extinct, and then the US -- preoccupied with the drug war, then terrorism -- revived it in a big way. At the same time you're onto something in that France is another country that has approached similar problems the same way.

As for the question of "arrest", that's actually an evolving area in US case law. The Supreme Court has defined certain aspects of detention that constitute arrest -- e.g. freedom to leave, period of time, access to communications or refreshments -- such that the police may have arrested someone without using the word. Many of the renditions to justice involve military support of the FBI, that is, troops provide firepower, but there's an FBI agent on scene to make the formal arrest, warrant and all. In pre-9/11 R-to-J cases, such as the guy we (the US) nabbed in the Sudan (or Chad?), the local authorities sort of tag along and watch but don't interfere. In post-9/11 ER cases, like Italy, there seems to be silent cooperation by local authorities but much less actual involvement (CYA).

Anyway, I hope that helps clarify more how even today there are renditions that aren't "extraordinary", which to me was a key reason for writing the article. It stands to reason that calling one kind extraordinary implies that there is actually an ordinary type, but the latter do not get any press nowadays and very often the word "rendition" is used to mean "extraordinary rendition" only. --Dhartung | Talk 08:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Having worked in an area that dealt with international criminal extradition and rendition, I would like to add that we used the two legal terms in this manner: Extradition was any transfer of a prisoner done according to an extradition treaty, period. Rendition was any other transfer of a prisoner done outside of the formal guidelines of a treaty. The most common renditions were those that were regularly done with countries with whom the US happened to have no extradition treaty, and were fully "above board" transactions. Although, what most people now call "extraordinary" renditions would clearly also fall into the category.

The use of "extraordinary rendition" to describe the "below board" renditions was actually the matter of some debate. There is a school of thought that all international renditions are extraordinary, because they are occuring on an as-needed basis, outside of any sort of set legal guidelines (whether "above" or "below" board), and it is only the current media and human rights orginazation usage of the term that has distinguished "extraordinary" from "regular" renditions. But I will say that the distinction has become ingrained enough in the media and culture that I don't see it going away any time soon.

And unfortunately, I can't really point to any good sources for this other than our usage. - Tarfu92 16:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)