Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Offenders Abroad: The Case For Nationality-Based Criminal Jurisdiction, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

When a host state does not prosecute a U.S. national who commits a violent crime abroad, the United States does not exercise jurisdiction. Should the United States eschew nationality jurisdiction, when it may provide the only basis for prosecution? Part II of this article traces the evolution of nationalitybased criminal jurisdiction in U.S. law and asserts that the United States has in fact embraced such jurisdiction in the past, usually to ensure that U.S. offenders abroad were tried by U.S. courts rather than foreign tribunals. Part III examines the current U.S. jurisdictional scheme, which relies on foreign states to prosecute …