OVERVIEW

During 1999–2001, the United States proved particularly interested in cooperating with other states in the development of international criminal law. The heart of that cooperation lay mostly in the use of bilateral mutual legal assistance treaties and extradition treaties, which the United States concluded with several more states during this period. The United States also pursued multilateral cooperation—especially through appropriate international institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—to combat bribery of foreign public officials, unfair tax practices, money laundering, and international trafficking in persons and stolen property.

Extensive U.S. resources were also committed to identifying foreign terrorist groups and the governments who sponsor them, and in using the law to impose sanctions upon those entities, as well as prosecuting alleged terrorists when able to do so. Three incidents during this period were of particular note. First, the trial in the United States of individuals charged with committing the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa led to several important rulings on U.S. constitutional protections to be accorded to alleged terrorists once captured. Second, the trial in Scotland of two individuals charged with the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie entailed several path-breaking developments in the use of law to address criminal conduct. Second, the terrorist attacks in the United States of September 11, 2001, involving the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, among other things led to greater U.S. interest in adhering to two recent treaties for combatting terrorism.