Our "Special Relationship"!

Our Government would have us believe that the new arrangements with the US are both beneficial and not unusual.  In fact both of these assertions are quite wrong.  The US has bilateral extradition arrangements with 119 countries.  The overwhelming majority of these (116) provide for the establishment of a prima facie case by the US, and every single one of these 116 is fully reciprocal.  Approximately half of these arrangements further provide that "own nationals" need not be extradited.  In only two cases other than the UK (France and Ireland) is there not a requirement on the US to provide prima facie evidence, and in each of these Treaties, the incorporation of either article 6 (France) or article 7 (Ireland) of the European Convention on Extradition provides ample protections for Irish or French citizens accused of crimes which would be justiciable in their country.  
 
In summary, therefore, even if the US were to ratify the new Treaty, which they realistically now have no incentive to do, our arrangements would place the rights of UK citizens below those of any other country in the world.  Absent ratification by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, we cannot even avail ourselves of some of the supposed benefits of the new Treaty in extraditing people from the US.  Is this really what the "special relationship" is meant to be about?
 
Attached is an analysis of the US worldwide extradition treaty network.

USExtraditionArrangements.doc