Supreme Court Considers Foreign Arrests. Another case where international law comes into play: Does our government, having failed to get cooperation of another nation’s government, have the right to arrest someone for violation of American laws and bring them here to stand trial? Lower courts have said no and thrown out the arrest in question but the Feds are appealing.
Could be important if we ever do capture someone like bin Laden and want to bring him here for trial… yet I’m still thinking that violating national sovereignty could be a slippery slope, especially if we expect other countries to respect ours. Hypothetical case in point: China would like very much to arrest the founder of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa), Li Hongzhi, but last I read he lives in the US. There’s no way we would extradite him, we don’t even recognize what the Chinese government’s accused him of as a crime. But if arrests of the type in question are legitimized by SCOTUS, could we complain if they sent a team in and took Li Hongzhi by force?
BillSaysThis 