Expanding Judicial Scrutiny of Human Rights in Extradition Cases After Soering

Abstract

In the Soering Case, the European Court of Human Rights (European Court) held that Great Britain would violate the European Convention on Human Rights (European Convention) if it extradited Jens Soering to the United States to face murder charges and a potential death sentence. The decision captured world attention because the case had tabloid appeal-U.S. prosecutors believed Soering had collaborated with Elizabeth Haysom, his girlfriend and the heiress to the Astor steel fortune, to murder her parents-and because the decision condemned as inhuman and degrading the conditions on death row in U.S. prisons.