Unpublished Disposition, 931 F.2d 60 (9th Cir. 1991)

MEMORANDUM^** 

Naftel is confined in the Arizona State Prison at Tucson, Arizona. He alleges that he is a citizen of the United Kingdom, and requests a transfer to a prison in the United Kingdom pursuant to the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. The Governor of Arizona denied Naftel's request, based on Arizona Department of Corrections Policy 502.1, p 4.1.4, which states that to be eligible for a transfer to a foreign country, an inmate "must not have been sentenced for a crime of violence or threatened violence." Because Naftel's crime involved the threat of violence, his request for transfer was denied.

Naftel then brought an action in the district court under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985 and 1986, alleging that he was being held in violation of federal law. The district court rejected his claim and we now affirm.

The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons provides that a sentenced person may be transferred only if "the sentencing and administering States agree to the transfer." Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, Article 3, p 1(f). In a statement explaining the meaning of the treaty, the Council of Europe stated that the treaty "does not contain an obligation on Contracting States to comply with a request for transfer, for that reason, it was not necessary to list any grounds for refusal, nor to require the requested state to give reasons for its refusal to agree to a requested transfer." Explanatory Statement at 13. The United States gives its own states the opportunity to advise the United States about whether they would agree to a transfer. Department of State Letter of Submittal at 2. Because the treaty provides that transfers may not be granted without the consent of the member state, and because the treaty's drafters indicated that consent could be withheld for any reasons, we affirm the district court's dismissal of Naftel's complaint.

AFFIRMED.