ABSTRACT
Mutual legal assistance and extradition treaties are intended to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of crimes occurring across national borders. The authors explore the substantial limitations of these treaties, ranging from their slow and inflexible nature to the substantial leeway given to refuse requests when considered expeditious to do so. The authors conclude that the treaty system is likely to fail unless both the home country of an organized criminal group and the country the group victimizes transnationally are threatened similarly by the same organization, both have capacities needed to respond, and both share the same motivation to work together to respond.
