The Long Arm of the Law: Bringing International Drug Offenders to Justice in American Courts

Abstract

The exportation of the US war on drugs to the international arena has relied on the deployment of various strategies designed to reduce the supply of illegal drugs to the American market, and to hold perpetrators in foreign countries accountable. This paper focuses on the use of extradition in facilitating the prosecution of foreign nationals, and, through a case study of Jamaica, examines some of the problems inherent in the process of arresting and transferring drug offenders from countries within Latin America and the Caribbean to "face justice" in American courts.