But he was selling the seeds by mail-order into the US. A cross-border offence like that can usually be prosecuted in either country.
Virtually anyone who kills an American citizen can be prosecuted in the US. Most countries assert jurisdiction over violent crimes against their own citizens. The difficulty here is extradition, since the country where the murder takes place generally has a better claim to jurisdiction (and possession of the perp.)
That’s not the case in Canada. It’s not an offence under Canadian law to kill a Canadian in another country.
What other countries assert that type of extra-territorial jurisdiction?
Actually, Canada does assert extra-territorial jurisdiction over some violent crimes.
See Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46, s 7(4.1).
The US, for one, though only for a limited range of crimes. France and Switzerland have both adopted jurisdictional statutes based on passive personality jurisdiction. Most of the Gulf states, too. It’s a bit hard to say exactly who recognizes passive personality as a means to assert jurisdiction standing alone, because it tends to arise in “universal” jurisdiction cases (piracy, genocide, hostage taking, etc.) and offenses against the “law of nations” are themselves generally grounds to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction.
I should not have said “most countries”, upon consideration, because I can’t prove or disprove that.
The provision Richard Parker quoted for Canada is not quite the same because it seems to be based on the nationality principle (the defendant’s citizenship) rather than the passive personality principle (victim’s citizenship.)
According to one law journal article I have on my desk, the list includes at least the following countries:
Singapore
Indonesia
Zimbabwe
Iraq
Russia
France
United Kingdom
Mexico
Canada
Japan
Israel
Thailand
That’s true, but that’s just one provision. Others apply to non-Canadian perpetrators.
E.g., (3.75) Notwithstanding anything in this Act or any other Act, every one who commits an act or omission outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would be an indictable offence and would also constitute a terrorist activity referred to in paragraph (b) of the definition “terrorist activity” in subsection 83.01(1) is deemed to commit that act or omission in Canada if
(a) the act or omission is committed against a Canadian citizen;
(b) the act or omission is committed against a Canadian government or public facility located outside Canada; or
(c) the act or omission is committed with intent to compel the Government of Canada or of a province to do or refrain from doing any act.
Thanks.
Getting back to the sex crimes overseas, I just had to do some mandatory annual computer based training.
There is a slide with this verbage, bolding mine:
“Although prostitution may be legal in a host country, it is illegal under U.S. law.”
&
“Civilian personnel and contractors are liable for prosecution of TIP [Trafficking in Persons] offenses under federal or state criminal codes if the crimes were committed in the U.S. In most states, TIP is a Felony offense. At the federal level, TIP sentences can be as high as life in prison. Under the TVPA and PROTECT Acts, the U.S. Government has jurisdiction over TIP offenses committed overseas by U.S. citizen.”
Links to Trafficking Victims Protection Act & Prosecuting Remedies and Tools Against the Exploitation of Children Today (
to the name) can be found here: http://www.state.gov/j/tip/laws/
The training does specify (in the case of civilian & contractors) that those overseas on buisness on behalf of the Federal government fall under the jurisdiction of TIP prosecutions. I don’t know why they single out civilian/contractor/military service people like that, unless it means that everyone else is less likely to be prosecuted.
That is an assertion of sovereignty over Canadians who commit certain crimes outside Canada. That’s different from asserting sovereignty over acts of violence committed against Canadians anywhere in the world, which is what was originally discussed.
See post 67.
Section 7(4) of the Criminal Code relates to sexual crimes against children created by Canadians abroad, which was mentioned earlier in this thread.
Also, I agree that Canada does assert extra/territorial criminal jurisdiction in some cases which typically have an international component: piracy, sky-jacking, terrorism. However, those are very specific topics, not a general concept that it’s a criminal offence under Canadian law to commit acts of violence against a Canadian anywhere in the world.
I’m sure a US government employee who sold state secrets while in, say, Belarus, would be prosecuted.
How would that work if we’re married? Since in many US states you can get married well before 18, then if I honeymoon in Paris I am arrested when I get back home?:dubious:
And I assume a person who conspires to commit a crime that is somehow tied to the USA can be prosecuted even if the conspiracy happened outside the USA?
I thought I read that this is the case with the Kim Dotcom and Mega-Upload case. He’s German resident in New Zealand running a business in Hong Kong, but some of the servers rented were in the USA. Allowing downloads to happen in the USA from overseas might be a grey area, but IIRC he also accepted membership payments from US residents?
There is an extradition treaty between the US and the UK which was introduced in great haste in the months following the events of 2003. I guess it was intended to deal with terrorism and international criminality.
In terms of its application, the standard of proof of a crime is very dissimilar to merit extradition. The standard required being much higher in the US. In the UK it seems to revolve around ‘did they fill in the form correctly’.
This has given rise to a number of cases where individuals have been extradited to the US to face justice for crimes which seem pretty minor league…well look for yourself:
http://www.friends-extradited.org/
There are some sad cases, people have ended up in SuperMax prisons for what seem to be offences that break no law in the UK but seem part of the speculative nature of judicial prosecution in the US.
These cases have cast a shadow over UK-US relations for some ten years now.
It is one of the reasons why Wikileaks Julian Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
These extradition cases are absolutely unbelievable, stunning and mind-blowing. Is there any other country in the world which sends its citizens to the US to be tried there?
It’s not like we aren’t prosecuting plenty of our own people.
Most common law jurisdictions don’t exclude their own citizens from extradition, so yes, there are other countries which extradite their own citizens to the US. However, countries in the civil law tradition, like France and Germany, won’t extradite their own citizens. Instead, if another country presents evidence that a citizen has committed a crime, they will try them in their own country.
That said, Canada will not extradite anyone to the US facing a capital crime, unless the US takes the death penalty off the table. There’s also been at least one case where the supreme Court of Canada denied extradition based on statements from the US trial judge and district attorney, which the Supreme Court of Canada held would violate the right to a fair trial under Canadian constitutional standards.
The existence of an extradition treaty between the UK and the US is the reason Assange is fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden?
You’ll have to connect the dots a bit for me. If Assange is worried that the UK is too lax, extradition to Sweden takes him out of the British jurisdiction.