The United States and the European Union have completed modernization of extradition treaties aimed to expansion of coverage to emerging new offenses and provision for prosecutor-to-prosecutor extradition requests.

Among the main provisions in the new agreements are the following:

• “Dual criminality” standard

Outdated lists of extraditable offenses were replaced with a “dual criminality” standard, which means that a crime is extraditable if it is punishable as a crime under the criminal law of both parties to the treaty.

• Prosecutor-to-prosecutor extradition requests

To make the process more efficient requests for extradition could be sent directly from EU prosecutors to US prosecutors.

• Temporary extradition

Fugitives can be temporary transferred to the requesting state, with return to the other state after proceedings are completed for avoidance of situations where they face criminal charges or are convicted for other offenses in the countries to which they have fled.

• Extradition upon condition

States can condition extradition on an assurance that the death penalty shall not be imposed or carried out, if the offense for which extradition is sought is punishable by death under the laws in the requesting state and not punishable by death under the laws of the requested state.

The US Senate ratified 28 law enforcement agreements with 27 EU states and the European Union itself, and now the agreements will take effect as soon as the EU members finish their own ratification processes.