The Death Penalty and U.S. Diplomacy

Kendall and Siracusa's study is a unique contribution to our understanding of death penalty policy in the United States and, more specifically, the role of international actors in influencing that policy... One can sense the respective expertise and backgrounds of Kendall and Siracusa in the text... [T]he series of detailed case studies presented by the authors gives the reader concrete and detailed insight into the influence of specific international actors at a variety of levels of the judicial and policy processes. Such details are the greatest strength of the study. Taken together, they offer fascinating and sometimes surprising insight into the sheer number and varied nature of international interventions into U.S. death penalty policy and practice, in defense of both individuals and broader laws, norms and principles. Such interventions will be of great interest not only to scholars of death penalty policy and practice, but also to scholars of international relations and U.S. foreign policy more broadly. Australian Journal of Human Rights Historians have paid little attention to how the U.S.'s death penalty policy is linked to the nation's diplomacy. Multiple issues arise when a foreign national is entangled in the American legal process or in the diplomatic battle over extradition. Since most other nations have outlawed the death penalty, Washington often finds it necessary to take the death penalty off the table when seeking extradition of a foreign national. This book enjoys exceptionally thorough research, visits all aspects of the issue in well-organized chapters, and benefits immensely from the partnership of an accomplished scholar of American criminal and international law and a distinguished historian of American foreign affairs. -- Richard Dean Burns At a time when United States death penalty policy is increasingly out of step with global opinion and international law, Kendall and Siracusa have produced an inspired study of the foreign policy dimensions of death penalty policy. The book not only reveals new dimensions of death penalty policy and politics, but is a groundbreaking study of the global-local nexus. It's conclusions regarding institutional responsiveness to specific forms of foreign intervention and influence have a significance that goes well beyond this specific policy issue. -- Jason Flanagan, Assistant Professor International Studies, University of Canberra, Australia