Comprehensive textbook, lecture and academic notes on Topics in International Law.
Includes key cases, analysis of the law, academic criticism and my own comments. Got me a 1st
University of Cambridge
Law Tripos 2018-2019 – International Law
JURISDICTION AND IMMUNITIES
Reading List:
- Brownlie, Chapters 21 and 22; or Evans, Chapters 11, 12 and 13; or Shaw, Chapters 12 and 13
- Harris, Chapter 6
- H Fox & P Webb, The Law of State Immunity (3rd edn, OUP, 2013) (useful as a reference book)
- R O’Keefe & C Tams (eds), The United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Prop-
erty: A Commentary (OUP, 2013) (useful as a reference book
Further reading on specific topics is suggested below in the relevant sections of the handout.
I. State Jurisdiction
A. General notion of State jurisdiction
1. ‘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 compet-
ence of international courts and tribunals (e.g. the contentious and advisory jurisdictions of the ICJ).
2. 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).
3. Jurisdiction obviously covers all matters of public law and private law. But the debate on its bases and
limits tends to focus on the exercise of jurisdiction over criminal matters.
B. Enforcement jurisdiction
4. A straightforward rule: 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), at 18-19:
‘[T]he first and foremost restriction imposed by international law upon a State is that – failing the
existence of a permissive rule to the contrary – it may not exercise its power in any form in the ter-
ritory of another State. In this sense jurisdiction is certainly territorial; it cannot be exercised by a
State outside its territory except by virtue of a permissive rule derived from international custom of
from a convention.’
5. As a result, the exercise of extra-territorial enforcement jurisdiction requires some form of justification
or consent, without which it will constitute an internationally wrongful act. That does not necessarily affect
the position under domestic law in cases of unlawful abduction of criminals:
Attorney-General of the Government of Israel v Eichmann (1961)
For the position under UK law, see R v Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court (ex parte Bennett)
[1994] 1 A.C. 42 HL
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