This research will discuss state-sponsored abduction and prosecution of criminal defendants from foreign states as a violation of international law. Under customary international law, one state cannot arrest a criminal suspect while he or she is in a foreign state without the permission of that state. Such an act goes against traditional principles of international law concerning the sovereignty of states and evolving principles concerning human rights. When a state authorizes such an act, it is necessary and proper for that state to be sanctioned by the other states in the international community.
Under traditional principles of international law, a state which authorizes the abduction of a criminal suspect in a foreign state and his or her return to the first country in order to face prosecution violates the territorial sovereignty of the second country if that country protests the action. Traditional principles have always held that the offending country must return the suspect to the country from which he or she was taken. Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law ( 432(2) & Comment c (1987). Although this particular situation has yet to be ruled upon by an international tribunal, see Quigley, Government Vigilantes at Large: the Danger to Human Rights from Kidnapping Suspected Terrorists, 10 Hum. Rts. Q. 193, 197 (1988), the basic principle has been expounded by several courts in various countries and some international organizations. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States ruled that such an action is an unlawful use of force under Article 2, paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter. United States v. Toscanino, 500 F.2d 276, 276-78 (2d Cir. 1974). In 1993, the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organization of American States expressed the opinion that the United States violated the territorial sovereignty of Mexico when it authorized the abduction of a Mexican doctor who was a suspect in th...