Talk:Extraterritoriality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.


As the Russian admiral says to the representative of the Japanese emperor in Pacific Overtures:

Coming next 
Is extraterritoriality. 
Noting text 
Say "extraterritoriality." 
You perplexed 
By "extraterritoriality"? 
Just noting clause 
(Don't touch the coat!) 
Which say your laws 
Do not apply 
(Don't touch the coat!) 
When we drop by — 
Not getting shot, 
No matter what: 
A minor scrape, 
A major rape, 
And we escape 
(Don't touch the cape!) 
That's what is extraterritoriality.

-- Someone else 01:19 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)


(note removed from the article:)

Note: this article is a "stub" and currently contains little more than a definition of this term. It should be expanded to include explication of the problematical nature of extraterritoriality in international relations, examples of situations wherein extraterritoriality has provoked extreme animosity on the part of native citizens of the host country, examples of situations wherein said status was regarded as essential to preserving the safety of visiting citizens of other countries from a corrupt legal system, etc. --- The article should also include examples of extraterritoriality from the Ottoman Empire. Alexandria, Egypt, for example, had a complex array of courts to handle persons of a variety of nationalities. In that case, it was subjects of the colonial power (not only citizens) who had access to courts. Thus the court for British nationals often tried cases involving Maltese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Augustthecat (talk • contribs) 18:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Following statement is not accurate: The term can also be used to refer to an area that is not considered as part of any country. An example is Castel Gandolfo near Vatican City. 1. An extraterritorial territory is in every case part of a country. 2. Castel Gandolfo has an extraterritorial status (similar to an embassy) and is therefore part of Italian territory but excluded from Italian jurisdiction.

Contents

[edit] Extra Text and Facts

I have merged this article with Exterritoriality; most of what was in the other article was, I thought, too formal/academic and too esoteric to be necessary for this article. However, I think the text worth saving, so I'm placing it here.

Exterritoriality, a term of international law, used to denominate certain immunities from the application of the rule that every person is subject for all acts done within the boundaries of a state to its local laws.

It is also employed to describe the quasi-extraterritorial position, to borrow the phrase of Grotius, of the dwelling-place of an accredited diplomatic agent, and of the public ships of one state while in the waters of another. Latterly its sense has been extended to all cases in which states refrain from enforcing their laws within their territorial jurisdiction. The cases recognized by the law of nations relate to:

  1. the persons and belongings of foreign sovereigns, whether incognito or not
  2. the persons and belongings of ambassadors, ministers plenipotentiary, and other accredited diplomatic agents and their suites (but not consuls, except in some non-Christian countries, in which they sometimes have a diplomatic character)
  3. public ships in foreign waters.

Exterritoriality has also been granted by treaty to the subjects and citizens of contracting Christian states resident within the territory of certain non-Christian states.

Lastly, it is held that when armies or regiments are allowed by a foreign state to cross its territory, they necessarily have exterritorial rights. "The ground upon which the immunity of sovereign rulers from process in our courts," said Mr Justice Wills in the case of Mighell v. Sultan of Johore, 1894, "is recognized by our law, is that it would be absolutely inconsistent with the status of an independent sovereign that he should be subject to the process of a foreign tribunal," unless he deliberately submits to its jurisdiction. It has, however, been held where the foreign sovereign was also a British subject (Duke of Brunswick v. King of Hanover, 1844), that he is amenable to the jurisdiction of the English Courts in respect of transactions done by him in his capacity as a subject.

A "foreign sovereign" may be taken to include the president of a republic, and even a potentate whose independence is not complete. Thus in the case, cited above, of Mighell v. Sultan of Johore, the sultan was ascertained to have abandoned all right to contract with foreign states, and to have placed his territory under British protection. The court held that he was, nevertheless, a foreign sovereign in so far as immunity from British jurisdiction was concerned. The immunity of a foreign diplomatic agent, as the direct representative of a foreign sovereign (or state), is based on the same grounds as that of the sovereign authority itself.

The international practice in the case of Great Britain was confirmed by an act of parliament of the reign of Queen Anne, which is still in force. The preamble to this act states that "turbulent and disorderly persons in a most outrageous manner had insulted the person of the then ambassador of his Czarish Majesty, emperor of Great Russia," by arresting and detaining him in custody for several hours, "in contempt to the protection granted by Her Majesty, contrary to the law of nations, and in prejudice of the rights and privileges which ambassadors and other public ministers, authorized and received as such, have at all times been thereby possessed of, and ought to be kept sacred and inviolable." This preamble has been repeatedly held by our courts to be declaratory of the English common law.

The act provides that all suits, writs, processes, against any accredited ambassador or public minister or his domestic servant, and all proceedings and judgments had thereupon, are "utterly null and void," and that any person violating these provisions shall be punished for a breach of the public peace. Thus a foreign diplomatic agent cannot, like the sovereign he represents, waive his immunity by submitting to the British jurisdiction. The diplomatic immunity necessarily covers the residence of the diplomatic agent, which some writers describe as assimilated to territory of the state represented by the agent; but there is no consideration which can justify any extension of the immunity beyond the needs of the diplomatic mission resident within it. It is different with public ships in foreign waters. In their case the ex-territoriality attaches to the vessel. Beyond its bulwarks captain and crew are subject to the ordinary jurisdiction of the state upon whose territory they happen to be. By a foreign public ship is now understood any ship in the service of a foreign state.

It was even held in the case of the "Parlement Belge" (1880), a packet belonging to the Belgian government, that the character of the vessel as a public ship was not affected by its carrying passengers and merchandise for hire. In a more recent case an action brought by the owners of a Greek vessel against a vessel belonging to the state of Romania was dismissed, though the agents of the Rumanian government had entered an appearance unconditionally and had obtained the release of the vessel on bail, on the ground that the Rumanian government had not authorized acceptance of the British jurisdiction (The "Jassy," 1906, 75 LJP 93).

Writers frequently describe the exterritoriality of both embassies and ships as absolute. There is, however, this difference, that the exterritoriality of the latter not being, like that of embassies, a derived one, there seems to be no ground for limitation of it. It was, nevertheless, laid down by the arbitrators in the "Alabama" case (Cockburn dissenting), that the privilege of exterritoriality accorded to vessels had not been admitted into the law of nations as an absolute right, but solely as a proceeding founded on the principle of courtesy and mutual deference between different nations, and that it could therefore "never be appealed to for the protection of acts done in violation of neutrality."

The exterritorial settlements in the Far East, the privileges of Christians under the arrangements made with the Ottoman Porte, and other exceptions from local jurisdictions, are subject to the conditions laid down in the treaties by which they have been created. There are also cases in which British communities have grown up in barbarous countries without the consent of any local authority. All these are regulated by orders in council, issued now in virtue of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act 1890, an act enabling the crown to exercise any jurisdiction it may have "within a foreign country" in as ample a manner as if it had been acquired "by cession or conquest of territory." A very exceptional case of exterritoriality is that granted to the pope under a special Italian enactment.

LordAmeth 00:58, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Roman Pulaski example

I have removed the Roman Pulaski example as it is too specific and does not really add any useful information. Gblaz 22:11, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "So-called unequal treaties"

I have re-added the phrase "so-called" to describe the unequal treaties. I imagine this was removed because it seems biased (POV). However, that was not my intent, and the point of view it would imply is not the one I hold. I included that phrase simply because "unequal treaties" is not (and has never been) the official title of any treaties; this is simply what they are called in the study of history, and probably even then only in certain countries and certain teaching styles and modes. Thus, they are the "so-called unequal treaties". LordAmeth 00:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed

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).

I can find no historical references to this, and the Knox-Castrillo convention was never ratified by the Senate. Roadrunner 18:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)