Extraterritoriality

From Freepedia

Extraterritoriality is the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Extraterritoriality can also be applied to physical places, such as embassies, consulates, or military bases of foreign countries. These places remain the sovereign territories of the host countries, and although they are not subject to local law, local law enforcement agencies do have the duties of protecting them from outside disturbances and can in some cases arrest them for crimes committed on the host states' soil.

The three most common cases recognized today internationally relate to the persons and belongings of foreign sovereigns, the persons and belongings of ambassadors and certain other diplomatic agents, and public ships in foreign waters.

Extraterritoriality is often extended to friendly or allied militaries, particularly for the purposes of allowing that military to simply pass through one's territory. In addition, there are a number of Christian states whose citizens, by treaty, enjoy extraterritoriality in certain non-Christian states.

Extraterritoriality can also refer to the extension of the power of a nation's laws to its citizens abroad. For example, if a person commits homicide abroad and goes back to his country of citizenship, the latter can still try him under its own laws, although this is likely to involve transfer of evidence and other judicial information. This way Poland could bring Roman Polanski, suspected to have committed sex crimes in the U.S., to trial on its own if the U.S. does not or cannot extradite him.

1 Historical Cases
2 Traditional cases of extraterritoriality
3 See also
4 External links

Historical Cases

During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Italian sea republics of Genoa and Venice managed to wrestle extraterritoriality for their quarters (Pera and Galata) in the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. They even battled among themselves for further control of the weakened empire.

A historic case of extraterritoriality was the seizure of the railways of Nicaragua by Brown Brothers Harriman, a U.S. banking firm. Under the Knox-Castrillo Treaty of 1911 these railroads became legally part of the State of Maine, according to former president of Guatemala, Juan José Arévalo, in his book The Shark and the Sardines (Lyle Stuart, New York, 1961).

Perhaps the most well-known cases of historical extraterritoriality concerned European nationals in 19th century China and Japan under the so-called unequal treaties. Extraterritoriality was imposed upon China in the Treaty of Nanking, resulting from the First Opium War. Shanghai in particular became a major center of foreign activity, as it contained two extraterritorial zones, the International Settlement and the French Concession; these extraterritorialities officially ended only after the end of World War II.

Japan recognized extraterritoriality in the treaties concluded with the United States, Great Britain, France, Netherlands, and Russia in 1858, in connection with the concept of "Most Favoured Nation." However, Japan succeeded in reforming her unequal status with Western countries through the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation signed on July 16, 1894 in London.