I have had a longstanding interest in the intersections of law and politics, especially where such interactions impact human persons. I was first exposed to extradition in particular, as an articling student working on extradition defence files. The difficulty in developing legally accepted claims of human rights violations under Canadian extradition law drove me to study it exclusively at the graduate level. My contemporary research concerns – particularly regarding the imperial legacies of extradition, and consequently the impact on how human rights are considered and/or protected – is in part driven by existing research as well as the moral and ethical imperative to address colonial and imperialist legacies of law as a settler of Turtle Island and a member of the legal profession. (pronouns: they/them/iel)
Research
What are the conditions relevant to explanations of how human rights are protected in extradition processes? What are the legacies of British imperialism on contemporary extradition practices? How can human rights be better protected in extradition? For most of the past quarter century, global trends towards closing and reinforcing state borders through coercive and criminalising measures have served to reify geopolitical divisions and exert state power in a globalised world. These trends are countered by increasing public awareness of the violence and rights violations against people imposed in the name of those borders. In law, immigration and refugee law normally take centre stage for debate and reform, with a secondary focus on anti-terrorism and other criminalisation measures. Perhaps because of its positive association with interstate cooperation, extradition has been less visible, but is no less important to these conversations. It involves two states (the requesting state and the state receiving the request) bringing a person before each of their respective courts and to move this person across jurisdictions. It engages many rights traditionally associated with criminal law processes – e.g. rights to bail, to access legal counsel, to know the reason for arrest – with the most extreme outcome of an immigration proceeding: forced removal from the jurisdiction. Uniquely, extradition also involves the explicit invoking of politics as a reason to restrict a specific individual’s rights. My project confronts these realities and focuses on the rights protections of individuals caught up in these systems in three states: Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It focuses on extradition’s subject, not its purpose or its technical process and seeks to provide useful knowledge for practitioners, decision-makers, policymakers, and others, to make more informed decisions which affect the rights of extradition defendants and to craft policies and practices that provides proper consideration. The aims of this project are multiple: first and foremost, it seeks to identify conditions relevant to and develop explanations for the particular characteristics of rights protection regimes in extradition processes. This objective leads to further goals: to further understand the legacies of British imperialism on contemporary extradition, linking this past to its present; to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of current rights protection regimes; and to suggest paths forward that better protect the rights of people caught up in extradition cases, building on a comprehensive understanding of these rights protection regimes as they currently exist. My dissertation will advance knowledge in several ways. My methodological approach means that my work will draw nuanced conclusions about the quality of rights protection regimes in extradition processes and the conditions that bring them about, that will have direct real-world relevance. In centring the individual’s experience as the subject of extradition law, I will expose extradition law’s links to and parallels with criminal law and in so doing, build bridges between the scholarship in these fields. Such connections are largely absent in scholarship beyond considerations for facilitating prosecution – my work will fill this gap. My consideration of the imperial context of domestic legal developments of extradition connects my work to expanding, and necessary, conversations within and beyond scholarship regarding the colonial legacies of carceral structures. Beyond academia, this project will allow judges, practitioners, and legislators to better account for rights protection in extradition, and demonstrate the legal and political viability of stronger rights protections within extradition in Canada.