Extradition and Martial Law in Ukraine: The duty of the requested State of enhanced control

Abstract

The extradition requests made by Ukraine during the period of martial law raise a significant and complex legal conflict between the duty of international criminal cooperation and the obligation to protect the fundamental rights of the person sought. The exceptional regulatory regime established in Ukraine and the successive suspensions of rights notified in accordance with Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights have temporarily affected essential procedural guarantees, such as the right to a fair trial, without prejudice to other rights such as personal freedom, ideological freedom, and even the right to life and physical integrity.

The objective of this paper is to determine whether the procedural conditions in force in Ukraine and their impact on the fundamental rights of the person sought for extradition are compatible with international human rights protection standards and with the duty of enhanced control incumbent on the requested State. Using a dogmatic-legal method applied to practice, we analyze Ukrainian domestic law, Spanish and European case law, doctrine, Ukrainian regulations, and official communications sent by Ukraine to international organizations.

The results highlight the need to reconcile the prohibition of impunity with the effective protection of fundamental rights, preventing international judicial cooperation in the form of extradition from indirectly legitimizing violations arising from a regime of exception. It concludes that the balance between these two imperatives can only be achieved through enhanced judicial control, transparency in the guarantees offered, and the assumption of shared responsibility between the requesting State and the requested State.