On behalf of the Transparency International Helpdesk, I analyzed the role of the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) as a legal basis for extradition. The Convention can play a role in corruption cases where countries don’t have a bilateral extradition treaty in place but require such a treaty to extradite a suspect.

While the vast majority of UNCAC’s 183 state parties have affirmed that they can use the convention as a legal basis for extradition, a total of 19 countries have excluded that option. At least two of those appear to be reconsidering their position. In practice, however, only a few successful extradition procedures that invoked the convention have been reported so far. Seven countries have mentioned incoming or outgoing extradition cases in which the convention was invoked, while one country reported that the execution of an incoming extradition request was partly based on the convention, partly on a bilateral treaty.

Overall, there are few extradition cases linked to corruption offenses.

You can find the full paper on the TI Helpdesk.