Message to the Senate Transmitting a Protocol to the Canada-United States Extradition Treaty

To the Senate of the United States:

With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I transmit herewith the Protocol signed at Ottawa on January 11, 1988, amending the Treaty on Extradition Between the United States of America and Canada, signed at Washington on December 3, 1971, as amended by an exchange of notes on June 28 and July 9, 1974. I transmit also, for the information of the Senate, the report of the Department of State with respect to the protocol.

The protocol amends the Extradition Treaty Between the United States and Canada, signed at Washington on December 3, 1971, as amended by an exchange of notes on June 28 and July 9, 1974. It represents an important step in improving law enforcement cooperation and combatting terrorism by excluding from the scope of the political offense exception serious offenses typically committed by terrorists; e.g., murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, use of an explosive device capable of endangering life or causing grievous bodily harm, and attempt or conspiracy to commit the foregoing offenses.

The protocol also will help to improve implementation of the current extradition treaty in several other respects. Most significant, the protocol substitutes a dual criminality clause for the current list of extraditable offenses, so that, inter alia, parental child abduction and certain additional narcotics offenses will be covered by the new treaty.

I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the protocol and give its advice and consent to ratification.

George Bush

The White House,

April 24, 1990.