I suppose that's not very consoling when you're staring at 30, 60 or more than 100 years in prison. The US should not have power to extradite EU citizens for the same reasons we also don't extradite people to Belarus or China. It's a one sided deal as was illustrated in the case of recent killing of a UK teen by an US diplomat:
also the way US treats its prison population and allows torture (enhanced interrogation) doesn't make it better than any other banana republic. It's in no way better than China. it just has more effective propaganda.
I share your sentiment about US disrespect of basic human rights when it's about law enforcement and incarceration, but treaties are treaties and many EU countries still suffer from decades of past diplomatic relationships based on balance of powers set 70 or more years ago
I'm from Italy, US cultural and military "colonization" (for lack of a better word) has been quite bad here
And the diplomat case is not proof of a one-sided extradition treaty; it's entirely separate from the issue of extradition. The diplomat's wife had diplomatic immunity, and therefore would have been immune to prosecution whether or not she remained in the UK. The UK had to change its laws to make criminal prosecution of her possible. Under US law, you cannot retroactively place someone under threat of criminal prosecution, so even though diplomatic immunity has been modified since then (and if the hit-and-run occurred today, she would be subject to criminal prosecution in the UK), the US probably could not legally extradite her.
The diplomat was not a diplomat, he was a American intelligence officer based at RAF Croughton. The letter of agreement between the Foreign Office and the US ambassador to Britain in August 1995 about the American personnel at RAF Croughton says explicitly that diplomatic immunity for people like Mr Sacoolas would not apply for "acts performed outside the course of their duties".
No, the US acted within the parameters of the 1995 agreement.
The agreement provided traditional diplomatic immunity[1] to personnel stationed at the base and their families but only waived criminal immunity for personnel for acts outside of the course of their duties. This waiver didn't extend to their families, because not being personnel, all of their acts would be outside the course of their duties and it would render their immunity meaningless.
This year, they changed that immunity so it no longer applies to family members, meaning they no longer have immunity. It was not made retroactive because the US would not agree to that (ex post facto criminalization is allowed in the UK).
[1] Diplomats usually refer to this type of immunity as "special immunity" because it is not related to the performance of diplomatic functions.
Extradition of U.S. Diplomat’s Wife Sought in U.K. Teen’s Death https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-11/extraditi...
also the way US treats its prison population and allows torture (enhanced interrogation) doesn't make it better than any other banana republic. It's in no way better than China. it just has more effective propaganda.