Defending Against Extradition to the United States

The arm of U.S. extradition law is long. The United States has treaties with over 100 nations across the globe, and in some cases has the ability to secure extradition from countries in the absence of any treaty. Fortunately, practitioners have defenses at their disposal that they may raise in the requested country's courts to help either limit the scope of prosecution once extradition occurs, or to prevent it altogether.

Commonly asserted defenses pursued by prominent defendants such as Autonomy software co-founder Michael Lynch, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou include the requirement of dual criminality, rule of specialty and risk of inhumane or unfair treatment in the requesting country.