Extraterritoriality refers to the application of a nation’s law to persons, conduct, or property outside its own territory. Customary international law allows nations to regulate extraterritorially on a number of different bases, including effects, nationality, and universal jurisdiction. Nations generally limit the extraterritorial application of their laws to a greater extent than customary international law requires. For example, the United States applies a presumption against extraterritoriality to federal law and sometimes imposes additional limitations as a matter of prescriptive comity. Some U.S. states have their own presumptions against extraterritoriality, which may differ from the federal presumption.
A Primer on Extraterritoriality
[Updated September 1, 2025] Extraterritoriality refers to the application of a state’s law beyond the state’s borders. Although the word “extraterritorial” often has negative connotations, international law permits a great deal of extraterritorial regulation. In a world where trade, information, crime, and lots of other things regularly cross borders, states often have an interest in…
Continue ReadingChina’s Jurisdictional Maximalism
In 2020, Chinese courts issued an unexpected wave of anti-suit injunctions over just five months. These injunctions targeted major foreign owners of telecommunications technology, many of them European, and barred them from pursuing foreign litigation related to their patents. In 2022, the European Union (“EU”) filed a request for consultations at the World Trade Organization…
Continue ReadingDistrict Court Holds that Federal Destruction of Property Statute Is Not Extraterritorial
On December 21, 1988, a bomb planted onboard brought down Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people on the plane and 11 more on the ground. By special agreement, two Libyan intelligence agents were tried for the bombing by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. One was acquitted and the other…
Continue ReadingDistrict Court Rejects Constitutional Challenge to TVPA
On June 9, 2026, in Boniface v. Viliena, Judge Allison D. Burroughs (District of Massachusetts) rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), holding that the act applies extraterritorially to torture and extrajudicial killing between aliens and that Congress had authority to pass the act under the Offenses Clause of…
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