Judicial precedents
Below are the cases that have set precedents at either the Supreme Court level in different countries, or supranational level (for instance at the ECtHR etc.). We have organized them roughly by the UN Committee Against Torture’s General Comment No. 4, para. 29, which lays out the conditions States should consider for the purpose of extradition. However, many cases “win” on extradition based on more than one condition (i.e., the risk of torture in China, and the risk of the death penalty, etc.). We have therefore organized the precedents based on the condition most strongly cited in the decision by the respective court.
Denied based on lack of evidence, lack of guarantee of a fair trial, and that the request came from an administrative body, not the judicial authorities in China.
According to a news report from 2010, the judges explained
The requesting State has not sent evidence that the arrest warrant for the accused and the extradition request come from resolutions of judicial authorities, a substantial form required by Argentine law
Further documentation of this decision is outlined in a summary of court records, emphasizing that the invalidity of the request.
The judges added that judicial authorization to request extradition
would not be provided for in China's constitutional norms and criminal codes.
Supreme Federal Court cited the lack of a fair trial and the use of the death penalty.
Dec 20, 2019 — EXT 1442 (rel. Min. Celso de Mello) According to the official news of the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (auto translated into English here):
Minister Celso de Mello released on Tuesday the judgment of the decision in which the Second Panel of the Supreme Court (STF) denied the extradition of the Chinese Wanpu Jiang and determined his release, given the absence of guarantee that he would have a fair and regular trial in China.
The case was decided in the last virtual session of 2019 (13 to 19 December). The request was formulated in Extradition (EXT) 1442 by the People's Republic of China, where the citizen was accused of the crime of absorbing illegal deposits from the public, equivalent in Brazil to operating financial institution without authorization. The panel followed the vote of the rapporteur, Minister Celso de Mello, who recalled that the political regime in force in China is qualified by governmental institutions and nongovernmental organizations as a totalitarian state, responsible for institutional practices of serious disregard for human rights. The dean also pointed out that the Chinese Penal Code authorizes the imposition of the death penalty on convicts who have committed ‘extremely serious crimes’, without any mention of objective parameters that allow the safe verification of the application of this penalty to the crime that motivated the extradition request.
Cited lack of evidence; separately found a violation of liberty due to the long-term detention during extradition proceedings.
The court dismissed China’s extradition request for a longtime Uyghur activist, citing lack of credible evidence. Notably, in an accompanying case that addressed Mr. Yapchan’s detention, the Constitutional Court found a violation of liberty due to unlawful immigration during detention.
Cited ECHR Articles 3 (torture prohibition) and 5 (right to life/death penalty concerns).
In its landmark Liu v. Poland judgment, the ECtHR unanimously rejected the extradition of a Taiwanese national to China who was wanted for alleged economic crimes on the grounds it would violate article 3 of the Convention. The Court noted that
having regard to the [...] various reports by United Nations bodies and other organizations, to which the Court attached considerable weight, the extent to which torture and other forms of ill-treatment were credibly and consistently reported to be used in Chinese detention facilities and penitentiaries could be equated to the existence of a general situation of violence. Thereby the applicant was relieved from showing specific personal grounds of fear, it being enough that it was established that, upon extradition, he would be placed in a Chinese detention center or penitentiary where, the Court concluded, he would face a real risk of ill-treatment.
The Court also found a violation of article 5(1) of the ECHR (arbitrary detention):
having regard to the nature of the extradition proceedings, whose aim was to ensure that the prosecution of the applicant would be pursued in another State, and the unjustified delays in the proceedings, the applicant’s detention had not been lawful.
Poland's appeal against the decision was denied by the Court. The judgment came into full effect on January 30, 2023 and in the ECtHR jurisdiction has maintained this precedent.
Corte di Cassazione (Sez. VI pen.), Sentenza n. 21125/2023 — decided 1 March 2023 (filed 17 May 2023).
Sustained Liu v. Poland and noted the inability of independent inspections of detention center conditions. The main argument of the Court centered on ECHR Article 3.
In the first Council of Europe Member State verdict following the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) Liu v. Poland ruling, Italy’s supreme court overturned the decision to extradite by the Ancona Court of Appeal (and its own 2015 sentence). A summary of the decision reads:
On the subject of extradition abroad, where the request is made by the People's Republic of China, there is a concrete risk, highlighted by Corte EDU, 06/10/2022, Liu c. Poland, of subjection to inhuman or degrading treatment, as multiple and reliable international sources, acknowledge systematic violations of human rights and the tolerated use of forms of torture, as well as the substantial impossibility on the part of independent institutions and organizations to verify the actual conditions of those restricted to detention centres.
The Italian prosecution agreed with the defense on the grounds for rejection of the extradition request in line with the ECtHR during debates.
Notably referenced the defense at a lower court, which centered on ECHR Articles 3 (torture) and 6 (right to a fair trial).
This case was Albania's first known denial of an extradition request from China.
The Supreme Court overturned the Tirana Appeal Court’s Decision no. 1245 (20.12.2022) and the Tirana District Court’s Decision no. 805 (13.10.2022) and dismissed the request to extradite Liangbin Chen to China. Judges noted the dossier arrived by email, in non-original form and not translated into Albanian, so it didn’t meet the Criminal Procedure Code and Law No. 10193 requirements. The judges also stressed there were no objective means to monitor China’s diplomatic assurances—so their “value” must be questioned—and they highlighted insufficient particulars (e.g., victim identity and mechanism of the alleged offences) and a failure to show territorial jurisdiction.
The Court also found that extradition would breach ECHR Article 3, pointing to pre-trial detention risks and life-imprisonment/parole concerns (citing Marcello Viola v. Italy). Further, house arrest was revoked. The case stands as a landmark in the terms it called out the PRC’s sloppiness and evasiveness on rule of law.
Cited ECHR Article 3 and asserted that diplomatic assurances were both insufficient and promised in contradiction to Chinese law itself.
The Czech Constitutional Court in its decision noted that:
The absolute prohibition of torture or similar cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (ill-treatment) enshrined in Article 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Article 7 para. 2 of the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms comprises a positive obligation of the State to duly examine whether a person after her or his forced return – extradition or expulsion – would face a real risk to be subject to ill-treatment.
The court also expounded on the problems surrounding diplomatic assurances:
Even the diplomatic assurances provided by China, which the courts considered sufficient, have not ruled out the risk of ill-treatment. Diplomatic assurances may only be relied on in the extradition proceedings if those are of such nature to effectively minimalize the risk of ill-treatment after the return of an individual and if those may be in good faith considered reliable. The principle of non-refoulement to a country where individuals may risk to be tortured or otherwise ill-treated will only be complied with if in a particular case diplomatic assurances effectively removing any real risk of ill-treatment in the country in question were to be provided. In the current case, however, the provided assurances were not of nature to effectively minimize the risk of ill-treatment. Those assurances were not provided by an authority competent to do so according to the Chinese law and it was, hence, unclear whether those would bind Chinese criminal prosecution authorities… moreover, the Chinese legislation does not provide for conditions under which any such visits may take place and it is, thus, unclear how the reassurance would be carried out in practice.
Court cited risk of death penalty, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and the lack of a fair trial.
The Swedish Supreme Court
found that there is a real risk that the person will be subjected to persecution for political reasons in China. This constitutes a general impediment to extradition under section 7 of the Swedish Extradition Act.
The Swedish Supreme Court has also found that
there is a real risk that the person be sentenced to death or be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Supreme Court also found that there is a risk that he may face a trial that significantly deviates from the demands of a fair trial as laid down in the European Convention for Human Rights. The Supreme Court has also assessed the weight that might be attributed to any assurances from China that the person, if extradited, will not be subjected to treatment in violation of the European Convention.
Note: Qiao Jianjun was later extradited to the USA where he faced charges for fraud. He was later deported to China.
May 2019 — EXTs 1426 & 1428 (Second Panel):
Denied extradition on risk of life imprisonment and especially the risk of the death penalty, which would violate the Brazilian Constitution. Also cited the lack of a fair trial.
The Brazilian Supreme Federal Court denied China’s requests to extradite a Chinese couple (Mi Xu & Ming Yao). The court summary stated:
According to the vote of the rapporteur, minister Gilmar Mendes, there was the concrete possibility of fixing, by the Chinese state, the life penalty or death, which are expressly prohibited by the Brazilian Constitution. In calling for the extradition to be refused, in addition to the sanctions that could be applied in China, the Chinese defense alleged the inability of the People's Republic of China to guarantee a fair trial to its clients.
2024 – Denied an extradition of Tan Zhifeng due to the risk of the death penalty but the decision was overturned in 2025 because of information on “reforms” to the Chinese criminal justice system.
Case mainly emphasized the real risk of the death penalty and ECHR Articles 2 and 3.
The local district court of Zagreb in late 2021 had denied an extradition request for alleged economic crimes and for being an organized crime member (Triad), a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court. Denial was based on the lack of evidence to support the allegations, and the Supreme Court notes that requests for further supporting evidence have been ignored. It further noted that a decision to extradite under such circumstances would deprive the individual of a fair trial. The court(s) also notes that the use of death penalty for one of the alleged crimes would violate both article 2 and 3 of the ECHR and references prior ECtHR cases. This case was decided upon before the landmark China-specific extraction case, which went into effect January 30, 2023, and is thus not referenced. Some of the alleged crimes have also passed the statute of limitation.
While not extradition, the court denied deportation based on the risk of death and the UN Convention of the Child (deportation would separate the individual from her child).
A court in Kazakhstan has set free an ethnic Kazakh woman from China tried for illegally crossing the border to join her family in a high-profile judgement that has put a spotlight on China’s secretive “indoctrination camps”.
Sauytbay’s lawyer Kuspan argued that her possible deportation would be in breach of Kazakhstan’s international commitments under the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, whose Article 9 states signatory countries “shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will”. Both Kazakhstan and China are signatories to the convention.
Cited the American Convention on Human Rights Articles 1, 4, 5, 7, 8(1), 25 and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture Article 13(4), ICCPR Articles 6 and 7, and ECHR Articles 2 and 3 and the Article 1 of the ECHR Protocol No. 13 concerning the abolition of the death penalty. The court also referenced ECtHR Soering v. UK, Chahal v. UK, Shamayev v. Georgia & Russia, Mamatkulov & Askarov v. Turkey, Ryabikin v. Russia as benchmarks for assessing real, foreseeable, personal risk on extradition.
In 2001, INTERPOL issued a Red Notice after authorities in Hong Kong named Wong Ho Wing a suspect in a smuggling case. Mr. Wong was arrested in Lima, Peru, in 2008 while entering from the United States. Wong claimed that returning to China would expose him to extrajudicial execution or the death penalty. Peruvian authorities issued conflicting opinions about whether to extradite him or prosecute Wong in Peru, while keeping him in prolonged detention. Ultimately, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that Peru violated the American Convention on Human Rights, particularly due to excessive delay and arbitrary deprivation of liberty during the extradition process.
The case of Wong Ho Wing v. Peru set binding regional standards for how American Convention states must handle death-penalty/ill-treatment risks, diplomatic assurances, and liberty during extradition—standards that every Inter-American State (including in Latin America) must follow. The Inter-American Court said states may not extradite if there’s a real, foreseeable, personal risk to life or integrity, and where capital punishment or similar penalties are possible, the state must first obtain reliable, effective assurances, assessed in context.
