“Rendition” refers to the transfer of a detained person to another jurisdiction for trial. For most purposes it is the same thing as extradition.
“Extraordinary rendition,” however, leaves out the trial. It means the transfer of a prisoner elsewhere for purposes of interrogation and, too often, torture.
“Putting ‘extraordinary’ in front of rendition changes the meaning fundamentally,” wrote constitutional scholar Louis Fisher in a comprehensive new law review article on the subject.
“Rendition operates within the rule of law; extraordinary rendition falls outside. Rendition brings suspects to federal or state court; extraordinary rendition does not.”
See “Extraordinary Rendition: The Price of Secrecy” by Louis Fisher, American University Law Review, volume 57, number 5, June 2008.
There are intermediate cases. When Israeli agents kidnapped the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960, it was an act of abduction rather rendition. Yet Eichmann was taken to trial with full legal process.
“Because there was no extradition treaty between Israel and Argentina, the U.N. Security Council asked Israel to pay reparations to Argentina, and Israel complied,” Fisher recalled.
We won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis without improving the capacity of state public utility commissions to protect customers, find and implement new solutions to meet rising demand, and realign broken utility incentives.
Public service commissions should require utilities to quantify avoided healthcare costs, reduction in pollution exposure, and improvements in population health alongside traditional metrics.
California just took an important step toward making electric trucks more affordable and easier for businesses to buy.
In 2023 alone, more than 2,300 people died in the United States directly from extreme heat. Expanding access to residential air conditioning could reduce heat-attributable deaths and adult emergency department.