Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Handbook – 2nd edition

From WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to honeymoon murder suspect Shrien Dewani, there have been an increasing number of high-profile extradition proceedings in recent months. Given the large number of cases decided under the Extradition Act 2003 since the publication of the first edition of this work, the second edition of Jones and Davidson's Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Handbook couldn't have come at a more opportune time.

The book is divided into three sections. The first '“ and largest '“ section is concerned with a detailed examination of the structure of extradition law put in place by the 2003 Act. For newcomers to this field, the text is reassuringly practical. But the handbook also works hard to give a flavour of both the history of the law as it has developed to date, and the second section has some well-chosen comparisons with practice in other jurisdictions as well as a brief section on transfer to international criminal courts and tribunals. Unfortunately the latter of these is frustratingly short, and might have benefitted from a lengthier discussion.

The final section deals with the increasingly important area of mutual legal assistance. This is the biggest development since the first edition of this work, which was originally only titled the Extradition Law Handbook. It will be interesting to see how the next edition of the handbook is changed by the introduction of the European evidence warrant.

There is a wealth of helpful material contained in the appendices. In particular, for those who work as duty solicitors, there is an extremely useful section written by Fadi Daoud of Lawrence & Co, which outlines a practical checklist for dealing with first appearances in extradition cases for those who might be otherwise unfamiliar with the procedure and terminology used in extradition proceedings.

With its combination of breadth and depth, the book deserves to be the first port of call for any busy practitioner dealing with extradition law.