[holding answer 15 January 2007]: The UK has bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) Treaties with Australia, Ukraine, India, Nigeria, Bahrain, Canada, Ecuador, Hong Kong SAR, Ireland, Malaysia, Panama, Bolivia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, United States of America, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Romania, The Netherlands, Sweden, Bahamas, Barbados, Colombia, Grenada, Guyana, Paraguay, Italy, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Chile, and Mexico.
The UK is a party to the following multi-lateral agreements which include MLA provisions:
United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, done at Vienna in 1988
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, done at Palermo 2000
United Nations Convention against Corruption, done at Mexico 2003
European Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, done at Strasbourg in 1959 and the Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters 1978
Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime, done at Strasbourg in 1990
Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Member States of the European Union, Brussels, 2000 and Protocol to the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between Member States of the European Union, Brussels, 2001
Scheme relating to Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters within the Commonwealth (the Harare Scheme) (as amended)
Mutual legal assistance arrangements between states are less focussed on a systematic exchange of information about convictions than they are on securing details of a particular suspect's (or defendant's) previous convictions for use during a criminal investigation or during criminal proceedings. So mutual legal assistance arrangements will typically only provide for provision of information about convictions or sentences in response to specific requests, not on a systematic basis. Of these only the 1959 Convention includes a requirement for parties to communicate information on certain criminal convictions
MLA channels may be used to make specific requests for evidence of an individual's criminal convictions for use in specific criminal investigations or proceedings.
There is also the 2005 EU Council Decision on the exchange of information extracted from the criminal record (which is not an agreement as such) which requires the systematic communication of certain criminal convictions between EU member states.