The ASEAN Treaty on Extradition: ASEAN’s Commitment to Cross-Border Justice

On 14 November 2025, all ASEAN member states (AMS) signed the ASEAN Treaty on Extradition (ATE) at the sidelines of the 13th ASEAN Law Ministers’ Meeting, signalling ASEAN’s commitment to strengthen regional capacity on crime prevention and criminal justice.

Currently, bilateral or international treaties or diplomatic requests govern extradition matters between AMS (Table 1).

The legal loopholes arising from differing procedures across these modalities and inconsistent or lacking commitments across the treaties signalled the need for a harmonised regulatory framework under the auspices of ASEAN’s Political-Security Community. Hailed as a landmark treaty, in the form of a relatively rare legally binding instrument, the ATE is the product of three decades and 14 rounds of negotiations.

The key takeaways from the ATE, analysed from its substantive, procedural and instrumental provisions, are first, that it is substantive in balancing AMS’ legal obligations and the norm of non-interference. The ATE’s substantive provisions create an interesting balance between the principle of non-interference between AMS and the need to ensure accountability by encouraging extradition. For instance, Article 1 creates a legal obligation to extradite any person wanted in a Requesting Party for an extraditable offence. The Treaty can apply retrospectively: Article 1.2 allows requests to be made for offences committed before the ATE enters into force. While retrospective application is not new to some AMS (for example, in the Indonesia-Singapore bilateral extradition treaty), it would be interesting to see how far back in time AMS will seek to exercise this right.

On dual criminality and what constitutes an extraditable offence, Article 2 considers any offence punishable by imprisonment for one to two years or “a more severe penalty” by the Requesting and Requested Parties. ASEAN leaders opted for this instead of a longer laundry list of crimes proposed under the earlier Model ASEAN Extradition Treaty, but the list may continue to be a helpful guide on extraditable offences.

The ATE’s provisions on mandatory and discretionary grounds of refusal embody ASEAN’s principles of sovereignty and non-interference. Notably, a Requested Party can refuse to extradite (someone) on grounds of national security or foreign affairs, or if the case concerns political or military offences. If ASEAN seeks to enhance its capacity to tackle transnational crime, these grounds should be interpreted carefully and narrowly so as not to impede legitimate extradition requests. The main safeguard under the ATE is Article 5.2, which lists a few serious and/or violent crimes that cannot be treated as political offences.

Article 7.2 presents a curious case: if the fugitive is a national of the Requested Party and the Requested Party denies his/her extradition on grounds of nationality, the Requested Party is required under the ATE to submit the case to its competent authorities to take appropriate action. That is, the Requested Party cannot ignore the offence committed by one of its nationals under international law. This appears to be an avenue for AMS to recommend the Requested Party take action, thus encouraging extradition in discretionary cases, despite this possibly raising the issue of potential interference in a member state’s affairs.

Second, the ATE is procedurally simple and practical. As it is intended to be a single, predictable framework for extradition for all eleven AMS, its procedural provisions are “clear, consistent, and cooperative”. Many provisions seem to be designed with practical concerns in mind, such as flexible time limits (As. 9.3 and 10) or forgoing these entirely. This makes the Treaty a more pragmatic instrument, as AMS can theoretically accommodate their own procedural and capacity-related difficulties on a case-by-case basis.

Two examples are Article 17, which provides a “simplified” extradition procedure where extradition can be streamlined if the requested person “explicitly consents before a competent authority”, thereby saving the Requested Party time and resources, and Article 21, which concerns the transit procedure for an accused person through third states, a welcome provision given the increased movement of people and assets involved in transnational crimes.

The third set of benefits is institutional. On dispute settlement, Article 24 provides that disputes concerning the ATE shall be settled through consultation or negotiation via diplomatic channels and other peaceful means. The ATE does not refer to either the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) even though the TAC concerns political-security disputes, or Chapter 8 of the 2007 ASEAN Charter. This choice perhaps highlights the AMS’ preference for broader, more flexible dispute settlement methods for potentially sensitive criminal matters where they are not required to include a third-party adjudicator or mediator. For example, if the text of the ATE referred to the TAC or Charter, disputes could escalate to involve external parties (such as the High Council or ASEAN Summit, respectively).

Article 26 provides that AMS cannot make reservations to the ATE; its wording is identical to that of the 1995 Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, giving ATE obligations a similar gravity. Requiring AMS to accept the ATE wholesale closes off any potential for loopholes that fugitives could exploit and signals the region’s commitment towards transnational crime cooperation.

The Treaty is not yet in force, however; it will need a minimum of six instruments of ratification, acceptance, or approval deposited with the ASEAN Secretary-General. Also, each AMS is required to adopt the necessary domestic legislation to give the ATE full effect.

ASEAN stands to benefit from strengthened regional cooperation to meet the sharp rise in transnational crime, especially cyber-related and -enabled crimes including online scams, human trafficking and money-laundering. AMS without a wide network of bilateral extradition treaties, such as Timor-Leste, will benefit from ratifying the ATE, while financial hubs like Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand can further secure their reputations for safety and legality.

Non-AMS countries also stand to benefit from the ATE. As ASEAN’s central extradition authorities streamline intraregional cooperation, non-AMS can indirectly benefit from spillover efficiency for their own extradition requests to AMS. Most importantly, those actively combating transnational crime would find relief that there will be fewer safe havens for cross-border crime syndicates in Southeast Asia.

That said, ASEAN often struggles to translate political commitment into action. The region faces significant hurdles to transnational crime cooperation, including varying levels of institutional and legal capacity, corruption and low trust between some of the agencies involved. Even with the ATE’s safeguards, regional security challenges such as the political situation in Myanmar or border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia could raise political sensitivities for some extradition requests.

Nevertheless, the ATE reflects ASEAN’s collective resolve. Later this year, Thailand will host the 25th ASEAN Senior Law Officials’ Meeting while the Philippines as ASEAN Chair can also keep track of the ATE’s ratification process, to ensure ASEAN’s stronger commitment towards pursuing cross-border justice.

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Editor’s Note:
ASEANFocus+ articles are timely critical insight pieces published by the ASEAN Studies Centre.