Can the U.S demand extradition of a non-U.S national who committed a crime against a U.S national in a country other than the U.S.? Is it true that the U.S can ask extradition of a non U.S person who has committed a crime against a U.S citizen in a country other than the U.S? I mean, I don't condone crimes but how can it possibly be that a person who has never set food in the U.S and committed a crime outside the U.S be extradited to the U.S and be judged by U.S law in the first place? EDIT: I've edited the question properly. EDIT 2: the sentence part "in a country other than the U.S" relates to the country the crime is hypothetically committed in, not an other country extradition is going to be delivered to. I know that the overall statement might be ambiguous.
All countries (and some sub-national jurisdictions) have extraterritorial jurisdiction The U.S. Criminal Code asserts the following items to fall within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, much of which is extraterritorial in nature: The high seas and any other waters within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States and out of the jurisdiction of any particular state, including any vessels owned by US persons that are travelling on them Any US vessel travelling on the Great Lakes, connecting waters or the Saint Lawrence River (where that river forms part of the Canada–United States border) Any lands reserved or acquired for the use of the United States, and under the exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction thereof Any island claimed under the Guano Islands Act Any US aircraft flying over waters in the same manner as US vessels Any US spacecraft when in flight Any place outside the jurisdiction of any nation with respect to an offense by or against a national of the United States Any foreign vessel during a voyage having a scheduled departure from or arrival in the United States with respect to an offense committed by or against a national of the United States Offenses committed by or against a national of the United States in diplomatic missions, consulates, military and other missions, together with related residences, outside the US International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act The US is actually pretty narrow in its assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the Supreme Court has held that there is a presumption against extraterritoriality. So US laws have to explicitly assert a claim of extraterritoriality. Contrast this with, say, France where the Code pénal asserts general jurisdiction over crimes by, or against, the country's citizens, no matter where they may have occurred. Crimes perpetrated from foreign jurisdictions Notwithstanding, a crime can be perpetrated in a country without the perpetrator ever having been in that country. Hacking of computer systems is an obvious example. However, almost all criminal codes include a crime similar to &quot;Attempted X&quot; or &quot;Conspiracy to commit X&quot; which clearly don't require a physical presence. Terrorist attacks are often planned in third-party countries by a group, only a small number of whom actually go the country to commit the actual attack but all of them have committed a crime under that county's jurisdiction. Extradition Any country (A) may request extradition from any other country (B) where A asserts that it has a case to bring against the individual. No country can demand extradition. B will decide whether to grant the request subject to its own law on the matter and the provisions of any extradition treaty that may be in place between A and B. Dual Criminality A crime committed in country A may engage the jurisdiction country B. If so, country A gets first crack at prosecution. Country A might decide not to prosecute, might prosecute and fail or might prosecute and succeed. Notwithstanding the outcome country B can decide to prosecute as well. Usually if the defendant has been prosecuted by country A (win or lose), country B will not prosecute. A specific example An Australian engages in sex with a French-American child in the US embassy in Rome, Italy. Italy has jurisdiction because the crime was committed in Italy. The US has jurisdiction because the offence was committed against a US national in a US diplomatic mission. France has jurisdiction because the victim was French. Australia has jurisdiction because sex crimes against minors by Australians are prosecutable in Australia. The perpetrator flees to the UK (with whom all four countries have extradition treaties) where they are arrested - the UK government (courts and foreign minister) will decide if and to whom the perpetrator will be extradited (probably Italy). After they are prosecuted there (and serve any sentence) any of the other three may request extradition. And so on.
Not all illegal things are crimes. Lack of evidence. They are asked to testify, and they say "what I said in my book was a lie". There is no general law against lying, except when under oath. Statute of limitations. Saying "10 years ago I did smoke drugs" means that any offence is no longer prosecutable. Lack of details. Which jurisdiction were they in? When did they commit the act, how many acts? You cannot be arrested for being a "bank robber" or a "murderer". You are charged with "robbing Bank X on 123 Fake Street the Thursday 25 April 2018" or "murdering Jim Thio in January 2017". Otherwise the defendant would have a hard time defending himself (how to prove that you have not killed anyone at any time?) All of the above combined with prosecutorial discretion in the form that any possible prosecutor will most likely determine that bringing charges would be just a waste of time and resources. UPDATE February 2018: Just for the sake of completeness, a reference to the situation of Jacques Cassandri, who did boast about a serious crime(a robbery in a Societe Generale vault in 1976) in a book. Unfortunately for him, he made some kind of mistake/miscalculation and the crime had not yet expired, so he has become an example of someone being prosecuted by confessing a crime in a book.
You would not be liable for a fine (If you think about it, how can you be - Australia does not have jurisdiction over you as you are in New Zealand, and you have broken no NZ law - Further, you declared the item to customs so even in Australia you could not be held liable) Looking at it another way, if you had gotten on a plane with it, declared it to customs on the arrival card, they would have simply asked to see it and made a decision whether to let it in or not - they would not fine you. Customs may or may not confiscate it (ie they may let it through). I've not sent a parcel to Australia, but I have imported seeds into NZ - I made a number of calls and emails to ensure I got the process right - expected to pay quite a lot of money to do it - in the end they just came straight to me - MAF did not even examine the parcel. Being that NZ and AU are pretty similar in terms of legislation (ie both the food standards are the same) - its probably actually Ok to send it anyway - in fact the Imported Food Control At 1992 - which I believe is applicable - specifically exempts many foods imported from New Zealand from the act. The last paragraph of this AU government web page states "The only New Zealand foods that are subject to the IFIS at the border are those classified as risk foods. Equivalence determination of food safety systems covering dairy products was reached in 2007 and seafood, uncooked pigmeat, chicken meat, coconut, pepper, paprika, peanuts and pistachios were aligned in 2011. This enabled these products to be brought under the TTMRA and removed the requirement for border inspection for these products."
The main question is whether the US has jurisdiction outside the US, which means either "in another country" or "in no country" (viz. the high seas or outer space). It has generally been felt (legally) that the US has no jurisdiction over foreign countries, see especially Banana v. Fruit, 213 U.S. 347 "the general rule is that the character of an act as lawful or unlawful must be determined wholly by the law of the country where it is done". This is known as the "presumption against extraterritoriality": it is a presumption, not a rigid absolute rule. However, there are exceptions. The Alien Tort Statute (one of the first laws of the US) says "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States". An application of that law is Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, where defendant tortured and murdered plaintiff's daughter, all parties being in Paraguay at the time: the court held that the US did have jurisdiction, under the ATS. Nevertheless, in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 which involves an extraterritorial kidnapping, SCOTUS seems to have said that this law is primarily about granting jurisdiction, and not about creating new torts, and they indicate that the wrongful acts within the scope of the ATS are, specifically, "offenses against ambassadors, violation of safe conducts, and piracy" (at any rate, it's clear that damage arising from pollution would not be within the class of bad acts referred to by ATS). Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. reaffirms the limit on what torts can be pursued under ATS. In this case, the issue is whether RDP might be corporately liable for acts that could be illegal under US law, and the court says "[w]hen a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none" (citing Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd.). Accordingly, Taylor Jr. was held liable for his role in torture in Liberia, since the Torture Victim Protection Act does specifically allow for actions against individuals acting in their official capacity, outside the US, for torture and extrajudicial killing. "Sanctions against" is kind of open-ended. The US government can (under some circumstances) prevent US persons from doing things with respect to some other country, such as the restrictions against doing business with or visiting Cuba, Albania, North Korea etc. as have existed withing the past quarter century. Were I interested in sending money to a person in Iran vs. a person in Canada, I would have more problems in the former case owing to "sanctions". I think we can safely conclude that the US cannot (in terms of US law) declare that "whatever acts of a foreign entity overseas offend the federal government shall be litigated as though the acts were committed within the proper jurisdiction of the US" (or, more simply, "the proper jurisdiction of the US government is the universe"). Congress has not yet passed such a law about extraterritorial pollution, so until it does, it cannot sanction overseas polluters. When/if it does, it presumably can, though enforcement is another (political) matter.
The decision will be made by whichever country arrests him first (although a minority of countries allow for the trial of people who break their criminal laws in absentia). Needless to say, if nobody manages to arrest him ever, he will not face any criminal consequences except the issuance of an arrest warrant possibly accompanied by a pre-existing conviction in absentia if arrested in countries that allow for such a proceeding. Normally, in these circumstances, either country would have jurisdiction under its own laws to prosecute and punish the criminal, and many extradition treaties would not require the extradition of someone who committed a crime punished domestically in the state in whose custody the criminal is as part of the same course of events. Many countries will not extradite someone if they could face the death penalty in the receiving country. But, sometimes law enforcement in a country with a less serious penalty will intentionally defer to law enforcement in a country with a more serious penalty that is simultaneously trying to arrest him. Ordinarily, law enforcement is not authorized to use deadly force to arrest someone who is simultaneously being arrested by law enforcement from another country against either the arrestee or the law enforcement from the other country. Indeed, using deadly force against another country's law enforcement officers who are carrying out a lawful arrest in their own country would ordinarily be considered an act of war. U.S. double jeopardy provisions of the constitution do not prohibit a second prosecution of an offender in these circumstances because of a first prosecution by another sovereign, but many prosecutors in many countries would decline to prosecute someone a second time for the offense that they have already been convicted of in exercise of their discretion, and many judges would consider time served in another country for the same offense as a factor in setting their own sentence.
The maximum determinate sentence for anything (outside of military law) was 21 years (in 2013 increased to 30 years for serious terrorism offenses). The law on penalties §43 says that In a sentence of detention, a time frame is set which should not normally exceed 15 years and cannot exceed 21 years. Breivik was tried once for the crime of intentional murder, and convicted -- 21 years is the sentence. I believe that Norwegian law does not have the "multiple counts" system that the US has whereby an act can be punished under multiple sections of the law or for each victim. He performed an act of killing with very many victims, so no penalty longer than 21 years is allowed.
There is, of course, no way to tell how the Court would deal with such a case today. This is not a frequently litigated issue, with lots of case law. I note that in the case you link to, the court limited the statute to false claims made "with a fraudulent purpose". This normally means that the claimant is attempting to secure an improper financial or materiel advantage. In the United States v. Tandaric case, the person convicted had falsely claimed to be a US Citizen on an employment application for a company which did not hire non-citizens, and so gained a job through this false statement. He could have been convicted of ordinary Fraud. The court has not been as protective of Fraud under the First Amendment as it has been of speech generally, or even of false but non-fraudulent speech. I am not at all sure if the court would overturn this law in a similar case today. Edit: In the United States v. Achtner case, the court wrote: But we agree with the District Court that the representation of citizenship must still be made to a person having some right to inquire or adequate reason for ascertaining a defendant's citizenship; it is not to be assumed that so severe a penalty is intended for words spoken as a mere boast or jest or to stop the prying of some busybody, ... This seems to dispose of the example in the question of a neighbor who is merly inquiring as to the character of the area, or perhaps from simple curiosity, and a false speaker who seems to get no direct benefit or advantage from the falsehood. Both linked cases involved false statements made to employers or potential employees, during wartime at that, with the false speaker's employment apparently at stake.
It depends. If the tip is that there are pictures proving that a minor consumed alcohol 10 years ago, probably not. If the tip is that there's a kidnapped child being tortured inside, more likely. In either event, they would probably seek to build up some independently obtained evidence to enable them to obtain a warrant based on probable cause. An anonymous tip might be enough, depending on how detailed it was and whether there were any objective indicators of reliability, but it's not a sure thing.