The protection of human rights in the suppression of transnational crime

By 1974 the transnational criminal law regime examined in this book was well under way.¹ Building on earlier treaties dealing with such diverse subject matter as undersea cables and counterfeiting, crime suppression conventions had been and were being negotiated to deal with crimes that, while they were not yet being called ‘transnational’,² raised enforcement difficulties best solved by inter-state cooperation. The 1963 Tokyo Aircraft Convention³ had contemplated organizing principles for dealing with concurrent jurisdiction over crimes as well as extradition between party states, both of which had been operationalized by the Hague Convention⁴ and Montreal Convention.⁵ More anti-terrorism suppression conventions would appear later in the decade, and Interpol’s facilitation of police cooperation was in full swing. In that year, Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni took note of these developments and expressed concern about the disconnect between this international penal cooperation regime, on the one hand, and international human rights law, on the other. It appeared that states were becoming eager to craft international law instruments to aid their efforts in the fight against crime, but the level of cooperation required did not extend to the provision of basic procedural protections for the individuals being investigated and prosecuted.⁶