What are the _vertical_ limits of a country&#39;s (or other entity&#39;s) territory? The examples deal with the US, but I'd also be curious about similar laws relating to other countries. Imagine there is an underground cave or tunnel whose entrance is in Sonora, Mexico, but which extends underground to pass under the territory of Arizona, United States. Now imagine that a woman enters the cave or tunnel and knowingly walks into the part that is under Arizona. Assuming she is not a US citizen, LPR or visa holder, has she illegally entered the country? If she commits a crime while in that area, would a court in Arizona have jurisdiction to try her for it? What about a court in Sonora? If she gives birth to a child while in that area, would the child be a US citizen by jus soli ? Would it be a Mexican citizen? Now imagine that instead of an underground passage, any of the events occurs in one of the following situations: She has jumped across the border line, but has not yet landed (okay, hard to imagine a child being born in this short of a time, but surely a crime could be committed while in the air) She is in an airplane crossing the airspace over Arizona She is an astronaut on the International Space Station, which happens to pass over Arizona in its orbit. If there is any difference between the &quot;jumping&quot;, &quot;airplane&quot;, and &quot;space station&quot; answers, why? Is there a specific altitude at which territorial jurisdiction expires?
Down - to the centre of the Earth. In a practical sense, 10km or so. Up - to the edge of space. Assuming she is not a US citizen, LPR or visa holder, has she illegally entered the country? Has she entered the country? Yes. Is this illegal? Well, presuming it is not a place &quot;designated by immigration officers&quot; for entry? Yes, irrespective of any residency or visas she holds. Only US citizens may enter at other than designated crossing places. If she commits a crime while in that area, would a court in Arizona have jurisdiction to try her for it? Yes. What about a court in Sonora? Maybe. It depends on if the crime triggers some form of extraterritorial Mexican jurisdiction. If she gives birth to a child while in that area, would the child be a US citizen by jus soli ? Yes. Would it be a Mexican citizen? If the mother or father is a Mexican, yes. Also, if the person is born on a Mexican-registered vessel or aircraft which seems unlikely in the circumstances. She has jumped across the border line, but has not yet landed (okay, hard to imagine a child being born in this short of a time, but surely a crime could be committed while in the air) Same answers apply. She is in an airplane crossing the airspace over Arizona What is the nationality of the airplane? Is this a commercial or private flight? Is its source or destination in the US, Mexico, both or neither? Has she passed through any nation's immigration? She is an astronaut on the International Space Station, which happens to pass over Arizona in its orbit. The ISS is subject to it's own treaties - it depends on her nationality and what part of the ISS she is in at the time.
It’s legal under Ukrainian law for foreign nationals to join their defense forces Indeed, this is so common it may be considered the default position internationally: the US, UK, France, and Australia just to name a few all allow this. Generally, it’s usually legal for a citizen to join the army of a foreign state. It is usually not legal to fight for a non-state actor this is where fighters for ISIS are in trouble. Where issues arise is if they take up arms against the country of their citizenship. That’s called treason and it usually attracts the most severe punishment available: death or life imprisonment typically. So, as long as you aren’t Russian and are not from one of the few countries that prohibits foreign military service, there are no legal issues.
Yes. A multi-nation citizen who has US citizenship has equal US citizenship with every other citizen; therefore the answer to this binary question is "Yes". The citizenship(s) of anyone who does not have US citizenship is irrelevant to this question; thus, the answer to this binary question is "No". Yes. The main point here is to determine if you have the relevant documents and permissions to be legally present in the US. If you are a US citizen, a) this makes the process easier for you and b) avoids any possible issues if evidence is found of citizenship from another country, which will make immigration think that A) you are not a US citizen and b) you lied to them. Most people have only a single citizenship. That is the default mindset of immigration. There's no downside for you to inform them; there may be additional difficulties, delays, and scrutiny if you do not. If you are not a US citizen, most of the same applies. Additionally, lying (even by omission) can be grounds to have your legal status revoked. In summary, if you have the legal right to be in the US (e.g. US citizen, legal resident) being fully honest cannot hurt you, and can make the process smoother. If you have legal permission to be in the US, being fully honest will help prevent that permission from being revoked.
National territory It depends on the nation. Some countries or jurisdictions have specific laws about meteorites, like the Western Australia Museum Act 1969, ss. 43-45, which provides that meteorites are Crown property (there are many meteorites in the Nullarbor Plain). Absent any specific rule like this, meteorites are likely to be treated in any of the following ways - It's a rock. Mineral rights (which often go along with ownership of the land in general, but can be separately assigned) may apply to meteorites on the grounds (haha) that they are rocks which can be treated as part of the land on which they fell. There may be special law vesting certain kinds of mineral finds in the State, should you be dealing with a meteorite made of gold, for example. Mineral law is a specialist topic even within national law, so the exact answer here may depend on a lot of factors - what the thing is made of, whether it's above ground or not, etc. - but the probable starting point is that rocks from space are no different in law from the rocks that were already there. It's an object that has no clear owner. There are longstanding principles for &quot;unowned things&quot; in civil and common law systems, typically applying to wild animals or other things that are naturally occurring and not part of the land as such. If a meteorite is &quot;res nullius&quot; in this sense, then it might belong to the finder or to the landowner, depending on exactly which flavor of legal tradition is followed. It's a valuable find. There are similar rules about &quot;treasure trove&quot;, for example in the United Kingdom which gives rights to the Crown. But a meteorite would not be classed as treasure in the UK, because it is an &quot;unworked natural object&quot;. Other jurisdictions might draw these boundaries differently. It's an object of scientific importance. A meteorite might be classed as &quot;cultural property&quot; within the meaning of the U.N. Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 1970 , as transposed into local law. The Convention covers &quot;rare collections and specimens of [...] minerals&quot;, and objects of paleontological or archaeological interest. This could affect somebody's ability to export or destroy the object (for the latter, see also the 2003 UNESCO Declaration which includes &quot;cultural heritage linked to a natural site&quot;). National law might contain its own similar provisions. International waters and the poles The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, Part XI governs mineral exploitation in &quot;the Area&quot;, meaning the part of the seabed that does not belong to any nation. Activities of this kind are meant to be under the auspices of the International Seabed Authority, which has copious rules about application and approval, navigation, environmental controls, and so on - subject to the Convention principle of treating the seabed as &quot;the common heritage of mankind&quot;. This Area includes the North Pole. The South Pole is part of the area covered by the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty, 1991, which provides in its Article 7 that Any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research, shall be prohibited. In practice, as in international law generally, States might do all sorts of other things. But this is the broad legal position. It might be that States would agree a special regime applicable to the totally unprecedented circumstances, or that it would be a free-for-all. Again, I'm assuming that the applicable principles for digging up a space rock for commercial purposes are the same as for other kinds of rock. There is international law about space rocks when they are in space, and about human-made objects when they crash down to Earth, but seemingly no special provision for meteorites.
Probably not. There is an unenumerated constitutional &quot;right to travel&quot; (which has been recognized in case law, and has not yet been judicially overruled) and there is also a concept called the &quot;dormant commerce clause&quot; which prohibits legislation by a state that interferes with the ability of people to engage in interstate commerce even if Congress has passed no relevant legislation. There could also be a privileges and immunities clause argument arising under the original 1789 constitution and not the 14th Amendment to that document privileges and immunities clause, which affords people from outside a state the same rights as people in a state. Also, citizens of a state are defined as its residents, so a state only has jurisdiction over someone as a citizen for so long as they reside there. I was born in Georgia, for example, but haven't lived there since I was six years old, so I am not a citizen of Georgia. The proposed Texas law bears some similarity to the Mann Act of 1910 which prohibits transporting people across state lines for the purposes of prostitution (to slightly oversimplify). But the Mann Act is a federal law, not a state law. The proposed Texas law also bears some similarity to the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which required free states to respect the slave status of people treated as slaves in a slave state under the slave state's law by returning fugitive slaves to their out of state masters, when the slave escaped across state lines. But, this was also a federal law and reflect the greater extraterritorial force of contracts and property rights created under state law compared to the extraterritorial force of the police powers of a state government. There are constitutional provisions requiring states to honor each other's rulings as well, most notably the requirement to extradite felons, and the full faith and credit clause that requires states to honor the court judgments and government determinations of status (e.g. marriage certificates) of other states in most circumstances. But, I don't think that you get there in a case regulating the conduct of a state resident outside the state, or in a case where you want to criminalize assisting someone in the state to leave the state for a particular purpose. Neither of these examples, however, involve state laws. Generally, penalties for doing something across state lines need to be established by federal, rather than state, laws. This said, the issue has not been litigated in this particular context yet, and the legal theories implicated and structure of those lines in fine particulars could matter. States have only rarely tried to regulate the conduct of their residents outside their own states and have even less frequently been successful in doing so.
With these facts, assuming Mr Y was charged with involuntary manslaughter (like in MA v. Carter) or aiding a suicide, based solely or almost solely on the messages, under which jurisdiction would he be charged? Applicable Law States have jurisdiction both over crimes that are committed in the state and over crimes that cause harm in a state. The classic law school example is a murder committed by shooting someone with a gun across a state line. Both the state where the gun is fired and the state where the person is shot have jurisdiction over the crime. Jurisdiction generally requires a purposeful act directed at someone or something in the state where the harm is suffered in most cases. But that isn't a hard and fast rule of constitutional law in other contexts, and there are few cases on point. I would consider this to be an open question. Certainly, however, the mere fact that the victim of a crime is transported to another state for medical treatment, where that victim then dies from causes relate to the crime, does not give the state where the death ultimately occurs in the hospital jurisdiction over the offense. Double Jeopardy Indeed, the constitutional protection against double jeopardy does not prohibit both states from independently convicting and punishing the same defendant for the same crime in this situation under the &quot;dual sovereignty&quot; doctrine. As background, the Colorado Supreme Court decided a dual sovereignty double jeopardy case today. Application To Facts (The application to the facts has been revised upon closer examination of them.) The line about &quot;Ms X, who is, at this point, still in Nevada,&quot; is confusing because she was in California before and isn't described as ever being in Nevada. I presume that &quot;still in California&quot; was really meant. Mr. Y could be charged (at least) in Nevada or New Jersey from which the continuing course of communications was sent (undue emphasis on the final communication is probably inappropriate), and Wyoming, to which the bulk of the communications were directed and where the bulk of the harm was suffered. California and Nebraska do not seem to be places to which the communications were really directed or where the greatest harm was suffered. Momentary presence in Nebraska air space is probably insufficient. There are also a set of statutes that specifically address crimes committed during an airplane flight (see also here) that has been discussed in other answers at this website. To the extent that this is treated as a homicide committed while in flight, 49 USC § 46506, might also allow for a federal criminal prosecution. I'm not sure that this is really a crime committed in flight, however, as it involved a course of conduct. A single email or a single moment of death doesn't really capture it. It is more analogous to a poisoning taking place in many doses over a period of time. Is Mr Y's speech in this case protected by the First Amendment? No. First Amendment considerations do apply to crimes involving communications between people that are not false, but if there is sufficient intent to cause suicide or other harm, the First Amendment yields to other considerations. The freedom of speech is not absolute. The exact place that the line is drawn is a matter of ongoing litigation. This specific issue is explored in depth in Clay Calvert, &quot;The First Amendment and Speech Urging Suicide: Lessons from the Case of Michelle Carter and the Need to Expand Brandenburg Application&quot; 94 Tulane Law Review 79 (November 2019). This article is responsive to that case of Commonwealth v. Carter, 115 N.E.3d 559 (Mass. 2019). The article explains in its introduction that: In February 2019, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Carter' affirmed Michelle Carter's conviction for involuntary manslaughter as a youthful offender based on her urging Conrad Roy to commit suicide.' In doing so, the court rejected Carter's claim that her conviction violated her First Amendment' right of free speech. Specifically, it reasoned that Carter's words with Roy immediately before and while he died were &quot;integral to a course of criminal conduct and thus [did] not raise any constitutional problem.&quot; In brief, Massachusetts's high court concluded that Carter's speech caused Roy's death' and that the First Amendment provided her no refuge.'
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.
Normally, an alleged offence of this sort that crosses jurisdictional boundaries will be deemed to have been committed where the defendant is located at the time of the offence regardless of where they live - as it is they who do the actus reus at the relevant time. In india, the venue is determined by section 177 of the Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973: Ordinary place of inquiry and trial. Every offence shall ordinarily be inquired into and tried by a Court within whose local jurisdiction it was committed. However, there is any doubt which is the appropriate venue section 178 will apply: Place of inquiry or trial. (a) When it is uncertain in which of several local areas an offence was committed, or (b) where an offence is committed, partly in one local area and partly in another, or (c) where an offence, is a continuing one, and continues to be committed in more local areas than one, or (d) where it consists of several acts done in different local areas, it may be inquired into or tried by a Court having jurisdiction over any of such local areas. Also, note the provisions of section 462: Proceedings in wrong place. No finding, sentence or order of any Criminal Court shall be set aside merely on the ground that the inquiry, trial or other proceedings in the course of which it was arrived at or passed, took place in a wrong sessions division, district, sub- division or other local area, unless it appears that such error has in fact occasioned a failure of justice.