EXTRATERRITORIALITY
The operation of laws upon persons existing
beyond the limits of the enacting state or nation
but who are still amenable to its laws. Jurisdiction
exercised by a nation in other countries by treaty,
or by its own ministers or consuls in foreign lands.
In INTERNATIONAL LAW, extraterritoriality
exempts certain diplomatic agencies and per-
sons operating in a foreign country from the
jurisdiction of the host country. Instead, the
agency or individual remains accountable to the
laws of the native country. The effects of
extraterritoriality extend to troops in passage,
passengers on war vessels, individuals on mis-
sion premises, and other agencies and persons.
The concept of extraterritoriality stems from
the writings of French legal theorist and jurist
Pierre Ayraut (1536–1601), who proposed the
theory that certain persons and things, while
within the territory of a foreign sovereign,
remained outside the reach of local judicial
process. Classical writers such as HUGO GROTIUS
(1583–1645) and Samuel von Pufendorf
(1632–94) gave Ayraut’s ideas greater circula-
tion. In 1788, the multilingual translation of
Georg Friederich von Martens’s Summary of the
Law of Nations put the actual word extraterrito-
riality into the international vocabulary.
Extraterritoriality for ambassadors and
other diplomatic representatives gained wide-
spread acceptance during the reign of Queen
Anne of Great Britain (1665–1714). In this
period, British officials arrested a Russian
ambassador who had run up substantial debt to
the British government. An international inci-
dent ensued as Russian officials and others
throughout the world objected to Britain’s disre-
gard for the diplomat’s IMMUNITY. Because of
the outcry, Britain passed the Act Preserving the
Privileges of Ambassadors in 1708. Other
nations followed Britain’s example, and the
United States enacted an essentially identical
statute in 1790.
In the modern world, the UNITED NATIONS
has held a key position in upholding extraterri-
torial law. In a 1961 agreement made in Vienna,
the U.N. Conference on Diplomatic Intercourse
and Immunities extended exemption from the
laws of host countries to the staff and family of
DIPLOMATIC AGENTS. In addition, officials of
the United Nations and the members of the del-
egations of its member states receive extensive
procedural, fiscal, and other immunities from
the jurisdiction of the host country. Separate
and special arrangements govern the United
States and Switzerland because the United States
hosts the U.N. headquarters and Switzerland has
U.N. offices in Geneva.
The general laws binding nations to extrater-
ritorial agreements still rest on principle more
