Nisi in terris quae sunt sub uno principe generali. Per una storia dell’estradizione nel medioevo e nella prima età moderna,

Contrary to the traditional historiographic opinion, the remissio of fugitive criminals to the court of the place where the crime was committed was by no means a solution unknown to medieval and modern jurists. Indeed, arguing from the sources of Roman and canon law, they indicated the remissio as compulsory and specified the necessary formalities. Actually, even though customs existed in practice against extradition between independent communities and in favour of territorial asylum, jurists set limits to those customs and different rules, favourable to international cooperation, also emerged in the case law of some countries, such as France in the Modern age. Natural lawyers used these insights to found the obligation to extradite on a new ground, i.e. on natural law. It was precisely the right of sovereigns to do justice to their subjects that could be the basis for the solution in favour of remissio of fugitive criminals and against territorial asylum. Another transformation took place later in legal language: the term extradition began to be used to refer to what previously fell within the semantic scope of the word remissio.