For more than a century, advanced jurisdictions have agreed to return individuals from their territory to another jurisdiction for trial or to serve the remainder of their sentences, only in accordance with the detailed terms set down in extradition treaties between the two states. Such terms include important safeguards to preserve the individual rights of the person whose return is requested and contain a comprehensive exclusion of requests based on “political” offences, among others.

There is no current agreement between the Chinese central government and the Hong Kong government concerning the extradition of people between the mainland and the SAR. In my view, the proper way for the two governments to proceed in this matter would be for them to negotiate a detailed agreement, which would include all the necessary safeguards and procedures governing the extradition of individuals from one territory to the other. This would then be followed by legislation by each party to give domestic effect to the agreement they had reached.