Jurisdiction & Immunites PQ Notes

I. State Jurisdiction

State Jurisdiction

A. General notion of State jurisdiction

‘Jurisdiction’ is the right that States have under international law to regulate – by enacting and enforcing laws – the conduct of natural and juridical persons. Note that the term is also used to describe the competence of international courts and tribunals (e.g. the contentious and advisory jurisdictions of the ICJ).

Modalities of exercise of State jurisdiction:

• Prescriptive jurisdiction: power to enact laws;

• Enforcement jurisdiction: power to enforce laws;

• Adjudicative jurisdiction: power exercised by the courts of States in applying and enforcing laws (a hybrid between prescriptive and adjudicative jurisdiction, depending on whether the court is saying what the law is or ordering its enforcement).

This tripartite distinction comes from the US. In most of the cases you’ll only see a distinction between prescriptive and enforcement jurisdiction.

It is unclear if, to exercise jurisdiction, States must point to a positive justification for exercising jurisdiction; alternatively, is it possible States can exercise jurisdiction so long as there is no prohibition on doing so (a negative justification)? The latter was the position taken by the ICJ sometime ago.

• The Case of the SS Lotus (France v Turkey) (1927) PCIJ Ser. A No.10, (1949)

  • Facts: Lieutenant Demon, a French citizen, was on duty as officer of a French ship. It collided on the high seas (beyond the territory of either country) with a Turkish ship. Demon was prosecuted in pursuance of Turkish law.

  • At page 18: “The French Government contends that the Turkish Courts, in order to have jurisdiction, should be able to point to some title to jurisdiction recognized by international law in favour of Turkey. On the other hand, the Turkish Government takes the view that Article 15 allows Turkey jurisdiction whenever such jurisdiction does not come into conflict with a principle of international law”

  • Verdict: The Court affirmed the Turkish view; in so doing, it listed the general prohibitions towards the exercise of jurisdiction (see below – enforcement jurisdiction is territorial; legislative and adjudicative prescription can be extra-territorial).

    • At page 18: “This [the Turkish] way of stating the question is also dictated by the very nature and existing conditions of international law. International law governs relations between independent States. The rules of law binding upon States therefore emanate from their own free will as expressed in conventions or by usages generally accepted as expressing principles of law and established in order to regulate the relations between these co-existing independent communities or with a view to the achievement of common aims. Restrictions upon the independence of States cannot therefore be presumed.”

    • At page 19: “In these circumstances, all that can be required of a State is that it should not overstep the limits which international law places upon its jurisdiction; within these limits, its title to exercise jurisdiction rests in its sovereignty.”

But the contemporary position in the literature takes the opposite starting point: not permissibility, but prohibition.

• Brownlie at 475: ‘If there is a cardinal principle emerging, it is that of genuine connection between the subject-matter of jurisdiction and the territorial base or reasonable interests of the state in question’;

• Sovereign equality and the principle of non-intervention;

• Still, note the tension in the discussion of Lotus in the Joint Separate Opinion in Arrest Warrant, paras 50-51. The judges in Arrest Warrant describe Lotus as an old tradition in international law. But at the same time, they establish the Lotus principle as good potential for continuing to establish new bases of jurisdiction. They are hence ambivalent about the Lotus principle. Is it a principle ‘overtaken by other tendencies’ or a principle with a ‘continuing potential’?

Crucial in practice are the reactions of States to novel attempts to exercise extra-territorial prescriptive jurisdiction.

• E.g. the ‘effects doctrine’ put forth by the United States, evoked to justify extra-jurisdictional interference in the area of competition law (e.g., trusts). The US began to sanction European companies in Europe on the grounds that the economic harms of their actions were felt in US territories. European States have consistently opposed this doctrine.

B. Jurisdictional conflicts

Before we go into the justifications for extra-territorial jurisdiction, it should be noted that such issues only arise in situations where criminal conduct has an extra-territorial element, so it implicates more than one State. In these scenarios it is common for overlapping jurisdictions to arise.

In such cases, States usually resolve the conflict through a process of bilateral or multilateral negotiations that culminate in the triggering of their respective bilateral or multilateral extradition treaties.

The criminal courts themselves will entertain jurisdiction only where the State in question has adopted explicit domestic legislation providing for an extraterritorial exercise of jurisdiction (for the UK’s stance on the matter, for e.g., see the State Immunity Act 1978).

Finally, the jurisdiction to prosecute crime in question might be regulated by a treaty.

C. Enforcement jurisdiction

Enforcement jurisdiction is territorial – States can only enforce their laws inside their territory.

• The Case of the SS Lotus (France v Turkey) (1927) PCIJ Ser. A No.10, (1949)

  • Verdict: remember that the court was affirming Turkey’s approach – exercises of jurisdiction are valid under international law so long as they do not contradict it. In so doing, they enunciated the prohibitions under international law to exercises of jurisdiction.

  • At page 18: “Now the first and foremost restriction imposed by international law upon a State is that – failing the existence of a permissive rule...

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