Are there laws regarding boarding cruise ships while at sea? I don't know the technical term for it, but some people actually have told me a thing exists where people board cruise ships from the middle of the sea without paying. Given that there's no jail/confinement facility on these ships and the company will probably not cancel a whole trip just to take one buffoon back to the land and arrest them, ruining everyone's paid trip/jobs/etc. Would such an act even be illegal? Would they maybe just restrict the hopper from any events/amenities and make them stay out port? I ask because somethings like this are probably rare, but totally possible, especially with massive cruise lines where you may be likelier to go unnoticed and get off easier too. Even if the cruise line did tell the authorities, it's not like boat police are always present, especially if the ship is near international waters/boundaries/not in one specific geological region/etc. I'd imagine that even if someone did get caught doing this, or if they actually did enforce this rather than simply forget about the hopper, punishment would be very minimal/petty.
First of all, cruise ships are not lawless zones. At all times, the law of their country of registration applies. In addition, if they are in sovereign waters, that country's law applies. Also, many countries impose their law on ships that depart from their ports until they dock in another country's port. And finally, international maritime law applies (IML). In many ways, ships are some of the most heavily legalised places on Earth. Actions can be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction and that court will decide which law to apply. For example, a UK ship en route from Sydney to Noumea is governed by IML, UK law and NSW/Australian law while in NSW/International waters and will also be governed by New Caledonian law when it enters New Caledonian waters. Second, cruise ships do have a brig where people can and will be confined. The normal practice when someone commits a crime (like boarding without paying) and or breaks their contract with the cruise company is that that person is confined to the brig or their cabin and put off the ship at the next port of call. If there was a crime involved, they would be handed over to local law enforcement for investigation, prosecution and possibly extradition. If not then they would just be left on the dock - they would need to find their own way home. Usually, the cruise company would hand them a bill for the cost of their confinement, food etc.; if they pursue this debt or not is a different matter. A person without valid travel documents may find themselves in trouble with local immigration as well. Finally, boarding a cruise ship at sea without the cooperation of the ship would be damn near impossible. Even small cruise ships have 10 or more decks with the places where the ship can be accessed 2 or more decks (say 6-8m) above the waterline. If the ship was stationary it might be possible to throw up a rope I guess but if it was cruising at 12 knots, forget about it.
Swiss customs has a form to submit questions like this and they gave me a very informative answer. As it turns out the receiver is also part of the customs process. If for some reason customs decides to open an investigation assuming that something regarding declaration/import was wrong the receiver will also be part of the investigation and it is possible that they determine that the receiver is at fault as well. In this case in addition to the import fee additional fines or fees might be imposed on the receiver. I do not know how they determine this, but from a law perspective it is clear. There is always the option to just report a wrong declaration upon receiving the package which means you have to pay the import fee, but no other fines, fees or investigations will include the receiver (assuming the goods involved can be imported legally). The legal part points towards (this part sadly does not exist in English): Zollschuldner Art. 70 Zollgesetz (specifically section 70 (2) c.). For the unlikely reason that the swiss administrative legal code becomes unavailable this is said article translated by me: Customs debtors have to pay customs fee, or if they become unavailable make guarantee for it (materially). Customs debors include: a) The person sending goods across the border (sender) b) The person responsible declaring the goods c) The person on whos behalf goods are ordered &lt;-- Some interesting tidbits: Transport compaines are not liable for anything Your heirs inherit your customs penalties (i.e. you order something from another country, then your heirs have to pay customs fees if you happen to die) Buying a company also means buying their customs obligations.
Communicable diseases are endemic to the human condition Some places, times and situations are riskier than others but there is always a risk in widespread travel. Outside of disease spread, there are other risks in travel; for example, if no-one traveled at all there would be no motor vehicle deaths. On the flip-side, not traveling has its own dangers; for example, you will not die in a house fire if you are in your car. Of course, there are enormous benefits to widespread travel; economic, cultural and personal - life is to be experienced after all. If you stop the skier from skiing, then you have just damaged the livelihood of all the people who depend on tourism; the airline, the hotel, the bartender, the ski technician, the baker in the ski resort etc. Everything is allowed unless it is prohibited By and large, this is the way that the law works. It's legal to do anything you like. Unless it isn't. It isn't illegal to travel to, say, Finland. So you can. If the government (of whichever country) decides that the costs of allowing people to travel to Finland now outweigh the benefits then they can prohibit it. However, that is a political decision; not a legal one. As for your drink-driving example, I am old enough to remember when it wasn't illegal to drive drunk, although I was too young to drive. Of course, if you are in Somalia or Kenya it's still legal. Also, what counts a drunk varies by country - you can have a couple in Finland but cross over into Russia and you are breaking the law. Why does Finland allow such recklessness? Because it's a political decision and politicians in Finland and Russia have reached different conclusions about what level of risk is acceptable. Same with travel restrictions.
In the UK, broadly speaking it is not illegal to pay a ransom. However, there may be circumstances such that arranging or paying a ransom constitutes a terrorist financing offence - although a prosecution might be deemed against the public interest. I'm not aware of any such prosecutions. Section 15 (3) of the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it an offence for a person to provide money or other property if he knows or has reasonable cause to suspect will or may be used for the purposes of terrorism. Section 17 makes it an offence for a person to enter into or become concerned in an arrangement as a result of which money or other property is made available or is to be made available to another, and the person knows or has reasonable cause to suspect that it will or may be used for the purposes of terrorism. Section 17A makes it an offence for an insurer to make a payment under an insurance contract against kidnapping and ransom if he knows or has reasonable cause to suspect that the money or other property has been, or is to be, handed over in response to a terrorist demand. Section 18 makes it an offence for someone to enter into or become concerned in an in an arrangement which facilitates the retention or control by or on behalf of another person of terrorist property. If a person becomes aware in the course of his trade, profession or business (e.g. the banker assembling the money) that someone may be arranging a ransom to pay a terrorist, section 19 makes it an offence for that person to not disclose to a constable as soon as reasonably practicable his belief or suspicion and the information on which it is based. In terms of maritime piracy kidnappings in the area of Somalia for example, although the Government has tried to link them to terrorism there is no direct evidence of systematic links. But if it became known that such a connection exists, then the knowledge or suspicion element of the terrorist financing offences might be provable. In Masefield AG v Amlin Corporate Member [2011] EWCA Civ 24 (a case partly about whether ransom payments by shipowners to pirates were as a matter of English law against public policy) the Court of Appeal was not aware of illegality in the payment of ransoms under international law. The UK Government supported the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2133 in January 2014, which among other things "Calls upon all Member States to prevent terrorists from benefiting directly or indirectly from ransom payments or from political concessions and to secure the safe release of hostages".
Civil forfeiture typically pits the government against property, not the government against an individual, and in the US (also anywhere else), only people have rights: property has no rights. The first relevant instance to reach the Supreme Court was an early case, The Palmyra (25 US 1), where a ship was confiscated because it had been used in privateering against the US. Although the owner had been convicted of nothing, the court still allowed the confiscation since The thing is here primarily considered as the offender, or rather the offense is attached primarily to the thing, and this whether the offense be malum prohibitum or malum in se The defendant here is the ship itself, not the owner of the ship (known as in rem proceeding). The case law is replete with cases like "US v. $500,000", and such forfeitures have long been part of the arsenal to be used against wrong-doing, a law authorizing this having been one of the first acts of the US Congress, especially applicable to ships and cargo involved in piracy. The courts have repeatedly allowed such confiscation, at least in certain circumstances. In one more recent case, Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U.S. 465, the court stated that It has long been settled that statutory forfeitures of property intrusted by the innocent owner or lienor to another who uses it in violation of the revenue laws of the United States is not a violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment followed by a huge list of citations. Because of the doctrine stare decisis (courts respect prior rulings in similar cases), once a pattern is deemed constitutionally acceptable, it is very hard change that interpretation of the law. It should be noted that J. Thomas recently hinted in a dissent that there is a Due Process problem with civil forfeiture, raising strict scrutiny type objections to civil forfeiture, specifically that forfeiture was typically more narrowly applied – limited to customs and piracy, and justified by necessity, because the party responsible for the crime was frequently located overseas and thus beyond the personal jurisdiction of United States courts also observing that founding-era precedents do not support the use of forfeiture against purely domestic offenses where the owner is plainly within the personal jurisdiction of both state and federal courts Essentially, the reason why civil forfeiture (in its current revenue-generating incarnation) hasn't been ruled unconstitutional is that a persuasive argument has not been made to that effect. The court can't just decide this on its own, and in the most recent case, the constitutional issue was only raised at the Supreme Court, not in the Texas appellate court where it should have been raised. The most significant problem is that it isn't clear what constitutes "due process of law". There is, in all jurisdictions, some kind of legal process (see this report for an overview of the kinds of process involved). The standard of proof that allows forfeiture is pretty low (being a civil case, it is not "beyond a reasonable doubt"), and there are various impediments discouraging anyone from suing to prevent forfeiture (which until 2000 included a substantial bond requirement and the threat of having to pay the government's attorney's fees if you lose). Since there is a process whereby forfeiture can be challenged, a more sophisticated argument is needed, based on Due Process.
Depending on the bridge, you might be trespassing in some way. Railway bridges are the property of the railway company, they don't allow to go there unless specifically allowed and even the absence of a sign is not an ok in those cases. Similarly, highway bridges usually are communal property and they don't need to be marked as off limits if there are laws that prohibit being there. The absence of signs and fencing is not a carte balance to go there: If your starting point for the climbing is not easily accessible, they don't have to fence it. But besides trespassing, you might make a huge dookey: Depending on the attorney general, you might be, in Austria, in violation of § 46 StVO for being a pedestrian on the Highway, as the bridge in whole is part of the highway structure. Even if you are under the lanes, you are technically on or inside the highway structure. If the attorney really wants you in, they could pull out § 89 StGB "endangerment" as well as the § 176 / § 177 "endangerment of the commonality" (by reckless or negligence). After all, you might or might not be climbing the bridge to perform something to endanger all the people using it. In Germany, you will get fined for violating traffic laws if you go onto railway tracks or climb onto a railway bridge as you violate the railway code and the minimum charge is 25 €. You could get also sued for Reckless endangerment of the train traffic (§ 315 StGB) and locked up for between 6 months and 10 years. If you do delay trains in any way (and even if it is to allow a crew to get to you), you are also liable damages - this is very easy in the 5 to 6 digits. Similarly, if it was a highway, you'd get billed 10 € for being on foot on a motorway without special privilege under $ 25 StVO and again, you could get jailed in extreme cases under § 315b StGB.
"Police" that one would generally encounter in the US are local or state agencies, and the ordinary crimes you mentioned are matters of state law, so they would be reported to local or state police. (There are federal law enforcement agencies, but they only deal with specialized areas of federal law, and you wouldn't ordinarily encounter them in daily life.) On the other hand, immigration is a matter of federal law. The responsibilities of local or state police are governed by state law, and the federal government cannot compel state officers to enforce federal law. A specific state's law could potentially require state and local police to ask about people's immigration status and/or ask the federal government to check on the status of someone they suspect might be illegal. I believe a few red states have enacted, or are considering, such laws, though they usually deal with people stopped by police rather than people filing a report. Some of these laws have been challenged in court, and I am not sure which exact parts of which laws are still being implemented for each of those states. Most states do not have such laws.
The short answer is, in absence of a treaty or convention governing travel, then the law of the country over which the plane is located governs for the time the plane is in overflight. Laws of a jurisdiction (a country, or a state) are generally taken to extend upward from their boundaries (and downward for the control of mineral rights, etc.). There are a number of jurisdictional cases where service of process (presenting a defendant with a copy of citation starting a civil suit) or an arrest has taken place on-board aircraft where the action had to take place over a given country or state to invoke jurisdiction. As mentioned in the first sentence, there is nothing to prevent countries for entering into a Treaty or agreement that would alter the basic scheme, but absent a treaty or convention, the basic scheme of boundary extension would apply.