A historical precedent on the Assange extradition

This one's old but interesting. In a blog post on the London Review of Books website, Bernard Porter makes an examination of the history of extradition from Britain.

He brings the history to bear on the case of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, whose extradition to Sweden under the European Arrest Warrant was finally approved by the British courts on February 24, two weeks after the blog post.

In ths case of Assange, he says: "At least three of the old requirements for a successful extradition blatantly do not apply in this case, but they don't need to, thanks to the European Arrest Warrant."

Perhaps it's because I know too much history, but I was totally unprepared for the possibility that Sweden's current extradition request for Julian Assange might succeed. In the 19th century it would have been thrown out of court. I knew things had changed; but I was under the impression that most of the old safeguards were still in place. Apparently not. 

He continues with words of caution for those defending Mr Assange against forces real and imagined:

For what it's worth, I don't believe in any of the conspiracy theories surrounding this case: that it was ‘got up', for example, by the CIA. I also think it's highly unlikely that Swedish public opinion would permit Assange's extradition to the United States, which is apparently another of his fears: given some credence, perhaps, by one of the cables released by WikiLeaks, which revealed that the present ‘moderate' Swedish government was far more in cahoots with the US than it dared to let on.

And no one can yet say whether he is innocent or guilty of the charges he may face in Sweden, either in British or in Swedish terms. What I do know, however, is that his extradition from Britain, in these circumstances, could not have happened 100, 200 or even 10 years ago, when Britain considered itself to be more liberal, and was certainly more sovereign.