Extraterritoriality

Extraterritoriality (Lat. ex terra, " outside the country ") is a legal status of a legal subject or area. Featured is this legal status in that the legal subject or area not under the jurisdiction of the State in which it is located. Extra-territorial areas not subject for the duration of this status under international law the sovereignty of the host country.

In international law, the concept of extraterritoriality was formerly used as a fiction to the effect of the position of diplomats, embassies and international organizations, that they were regarded " as if they were outside the country ." Because of this ambiguous word usage is a legally inconsistent practices developed. Thus the very extensive, it was considered particularly in South America, an embassy grounds is to be regarded legally as a territory of the sending state.

The international legal conception of extraterritoriality was ultimately due to the recognition of the primacy of sovereignty of all subjects of international law and the establishment of the League of Nations not prevail. Consequently, all States are equal in their territory and subject only to the limitations of international law, but not the jurisdiction of a foreign state. The opinion of the extraterritoriality is now common only in common parlance. It has no legal meaning more that goes beyond a (functional) restricting the territorial jurisdiction of a state because of international obligations; in modern international law also includes the site of the diplomatic mission to the territory of the receiving State.

Such (functional ) limitations on the territorial jurisdiction are provided in special international agreements: Diplomatic personnel and diplomatic facilities shall enjoy the privileges and immunities set out in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations ( WÜD ) and are essentially designed functional. After that, they are inviolable, claiming extensive protection of the receiving State and are immune to influence and coercion. You are therefore being protected from whose accesses, but this embassy staff freed from the obligation to comply with the laws of the host country.

The same applies to consular personnel and consular representations (→ Vienna Convention on Consular Relations ). The international special legal status of the consular post, however, is not as much as that of the diplomatic mission. Local staff and honorary consuls have limited privileges.

Examples of " extraterritoriality "

  • The extra-territorial possessions of the Holy See: Within the urban area of ​​Rome: the basilicas San Giovanni in Laterano, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Paolo fuori le Mura, the Palace of the CDF, the greater part of the Paul VI Hall. and the Campo Santo Teutonico and the German College ( Collegio Teutonico of S. Maria in Campo Santo ) in the vicinity of St. Peter's Basilica, the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide in the Piazza di Spagna, the area, which occupies the northwestern part of the Janiculum hill, accommodate Palazzo di San Callisto in Trastevere, the Palazzo della Cancelleria on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, and numerous other buildings, the offices of the Curia. Outside of Rome: the broadcasting center of Radio Vaticano in Santa Maria di Galeria, the Pope 's Palace, the Villa Barberini and Villa Cybo in Castel Gandolfo, including gardens and a small farm (summer residence of the Pope ). The residence is a complex of three villas. In the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the summer residence (which includes the Pope's Palace, Villa Cybo, the Palazzo Barberini, the gardens of the Belvedere, and a farm with a small agriculture) was referred to as extra-territorial possession of the Holy See ( with an extension of 55 hectares ). In contrast to widespread opinion, not this status means that the papal estates in Castel Gandolfo part of the territory of the State of Vatican City is, but with the status of foreign diplomatic missions is comparable.
  • All churches in Italy are during celebrations, which take place in the presence of the Pope and are not generally available, also extraterritorially.
  • The Campo Santo Teutonico (also Campo Santo Teutonico, officially Campo Santo dei Teutonici e dei Fiamminghi ) are called the " German cemetery " and its buildings in Rome. They are adjacent to the Vatican City and are only accessible from there. In addition to the fully enclosed by walls cemetery this includes the Church of Santa Maria della Pietà, a priest of the Roman College and spaces Institute of the Gorres Society. Through the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the site was an extraterritorial possession of the Holy See, but not part of the Vatican City.
  • The seat of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order, which is located since 1834 in Rome at the Palazzo di Malta in Via dei Condotti 68 and the Villa Malta on the Aventine Hill to the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta 4 and has since 1869 extraterritorial status.
  • Institutions of international organizations like the United Nations ( UN) and its specialized agencies, regional organizations, etc., of the International Monetary Fund ( IMF), the World Bank, the, World Customs Organization ( WCO / WCO), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD) the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC ), the European Communities ( EC) and the European Union ( EU), the European Free trade Association (EFTA ), etc.
  • The United Nations Administrative seats in New York, Geneva, Nairobi, Bonn, Rome, Santo Domingo and Vienna (Vienna International Centre) and the International Court of the United Nations in The Hague
  • The International Law of the Sea in Hamburg
  • The bodies of the European Space Agency ( ESA) in Paris, Noordwijk, Darmstadt, Cologne, Frascati, Villafranca del Castillo, Villanueva de la Cañada, Kourou, Kiruna, etc.
  • The buildings of the European Council, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Auditors and the European Central Bank in Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Frankfurt am Main
  • The European nuclear research center CERN in Meyrin in the canton of Geneva in Switzerland
  • The molecular biological research EMBL with the main Laboratory in Heidelberg, and outstations in Hinxton (the European Bioinformatics Institute ) in the UK, in France Grenoble, Hamburg, and Monterotondo, Italy
  • The buildings of the European Patent Office in Munich and the offices in The Hague, Berlin and Vienna, and the Liaison Office in Brussels
  • The building of the International Maritime Organization in London
  • The building of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres, near Paris
  • The facilities at the NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ( SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium at Casteau
  • The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Trieste, New Delhi and Cape Town
  • The Collegio di Spagna at the University of Bologna

Examples of temporary " extraterritoriality "

  • The suite 212 of the Claridges Hotel in London was ceded during the July 17, 1945 from Britain to Yugoslavia to allow the birth of Crown Prince Alexander, whose parents were exiled at that time in London, on Yugoslav soil.
  • Camp Zeist, a former U.S. Air Force base in the Netherlands, was placed in 2000, temporarily under the authority of the Court, which meets according to Scottish law and the powers of the Dutch authorities restricted. This allowed the trial to the attempt on the Pan Am flight are held by Scottish law 103 over Lockerbie formally on neutral ground.
  • On January 19, 1943, the maternity ward of the Ottawa Civic Hospital in Canada was declared temporarily for extraterritorial. This was achieved that the Netherlands Princess Margriet no Canadian citizenship was what she would have excluded from the succession.
  • The area of ​​the construction site of the main mast end of Zehlendorf in Oranienburg in 1978 /79, a Soviet exclave, to the construction of the same due to lower safety standards in the former Soviet Union carried out more quickly to during construction.

Examples of often falsely claimed " extraterritoriality "

  • Building of embassies or consulates: The site on which there is an embassy or consulate is under special protection under international law (Art. 22 WÜD ), so that the host country has not entered the embassy grounds without the consent of the head of mission, search and seizures or arrests allowed to perform. However, the site of the embassy is not extraterritorial. However, the embassy and its diplomats enjoy diplomatic protection and diplomatic privileges. Messages are not extraterritorial, but is recognized to basically the territory of the host or the receiving State; this waived, however due to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the exercise of its sovereign rights, which concerns both the site of the embassy building of the sending State and the members of the mission ( the head of mission and the members of the staff and their family members) who enjoy all diplomatic immunity. Also may Embassies and Consulates " are customary international law established in the territory of the receiving State only with his consent. "
  • The Gustav -Adolf Memorial in Lützen is no extraterritorial area; these are, however, merely an urban legend without any true core
  • The Suvorov monument in the Schöllenenschlucht in the Swiss canton of Uri is not an extraterritorial area of Russia, although the unused land was bequeathed to civil law the Russian state.
  • The U.S. military cemetery in Colleville -sur -Mer in Normandy is no extraterritorial area, although it is managed by the U.S..
  • The unincorporated area Rheinau, so the right bank, located on German territory land the French Rhinau is no extraterritorial area, although it is part of the spell, but not to the boundaries of the French community Rhinau.
  • The area of ​​Langsurer ban, ie the right of the Sauer, within Luxembourg lying land of the German community Langsur is no extraterritorial area, although it is part of the spell, but not to the district of the German community Langsur.
  • The Badische Bahnhof Basel (Basel Bad Bf ) is not an extraterritorial area, although it lies entirely on Swiss territory. He is, however, by the originally agreed between the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Swiss Confederation State Treaty partly as German customs territory. Despite its completely located in the Switzerland location of the station is fully operated by the Deutsche Bahn. Who uses the German railway station as a transit station between two German destinations, has not left the German customs territory. Several treaties govern the powers of German and Swiss officials at the station and moving trains, customs issues, and permission for individual traveling German military personnel to use the station.
  • The Basel Mulhouse Freiburg Airport (brand name since 1987: Euro Airport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg ) is not an extraterritorial area, although it lies completely on French territory. This also applies to the road between Basel and Freiburg and the airport. The airport and the road between Basel and the airport as well as the Swiss sector of the airport, however, have a special status because Swiss customs officers may conduct checks on there under Swiss law. This is regulated in a treaty. The airport is located on French territory and is a public company under international law with its headquarters in France, but enjoys by a French-Swiss State Treaty of 1949 a bi-national state. In this context, the Euro Airport includes a Swiss customs sector on French territory. This is not necessary for Germany, since both France and Germany are the territory of the European Union.
  • The area of ​​Mundatwalds is no extraterritorial area, but fully German territory, although the French Republic ( with the exception of the castle ruins Guttenberg ) registered as a landowner of the area of the Mundatwalds the land register. France also received the permanent wood, hunting and water rights for the area as well as land compensation as a substitute for private property from before 1949, and for the grounds of the castle.
  • The Bavarian forests hall in Salzburg's Pinzgau are a part of the Bavarian State Forests, but no extraterritorial area. These forest areas on Austrian territory today are private legal property of the Free State of Bavaria and part of the national territory of Austria. They were once used to supply the Saline in Bad Reichenhall with firewood and are under the management of the public company Bavarian hall Forestry. They ranged original, with the exception of the area between Mittersill and Gerlos Pass, over much of the Pinzgau and the district of Kitzbühel. An adequate supply of saline with firewood was namely to switch to coal in 1911, a prerequisite for a profitable production of salt. It was not until long after Salzburg politically came to Austria in 1816, King Ludwig I of Bavaria was able to secure the forest rights of the Kingdom of Bavaria for ever; on 18 March 1829, the Saline Convention was agreed in the Austrian Emperor to the neighboring country in addition to some other rights conceded the rights to the forest. " The hall forests belong to irrevocable times to Bavaria ," it says in the State Treaty with Austria. Although a sale was the face of difficult public finances by the Bavarian state briefly envisioned, but then again discarded. The hall forests were ( finally only in St. Martin) managed since the 19th century by the Bavarian forest districts and from 1885 by the new forestry offices in Sankt Martin bei Lofer, Leogang and toads as Bavarian property. Since the forest administration reform of 2005, which led to the dissolution of all Bavarian forest offices, managed forestry operation Bavarian Forestry Hall in St. Martin the woods.
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