Extradition, Transnational Organized Crime and the Making of an International Society in the South Atlantic

ABSTRACT The negotiation of hundreds of bilateral extradition treaties in the second half of 19th century, along with the first multilateral agreements on criminal extradition in the early 20th century, transformed extradition into a routine mechanism of cross‐border crime control. The operationalization of extradition created a network of international cooperation that expanded the capacity of states and empires to govern crime beyond their territorial boundaries. Although often confined to studies of international law, extradition constitutes a privileged locus for examining crime and criminal justice on a global scale. This study examines extradition both as an exercise of state power beyond national borders and as an instrument through which transnational organized crime was historically constructed. It will be argued that extradition illuminates not only the development of internationalized societies but also tensions and conflicts that shaped inter‐state relations in the struggle against crime. Drawing on diplomatic documentation concerning the negotiation of extradition treaties and specific extradition cases involving primarily Southern European and South American countries between the 1850s and the 1950s, this study examines extradition not merely as a legal discourse but as a historically situated set of rationalities for governing crime. The central argument is that the formation and consolidation of extradition as a mechanism of inter‐state cooperation cannot be understood without a historical analysis of how expanding mobility in the South Atlantic reshaped perceptions of complex forms of criminality and, in turn, the institutions designed to govern it.