EXTRATERRITORIALITY AND THE OFFSHORE PROBLEM
Talk by Colin Nicholls O.C., at the 4th.International Symposium on Commercial Crime at Jesus College, Cambridge on 2nd April 1986
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The title you have chosen provides the opportunity of considering simultaneously the twin problems of extraterritoriality and extradition. It enables us to look at jurisdiction in the round, which is the only way to solve the problems which bring us together.
The first point I wish to make therefore, is that I wish the United Kingdom Government, in presenting its proposals for the reform of criminal justice, had dealt with both areas at once, instead of adopting the old English remedy; in this case the piecemeal reform of extradition with foreign countries forced on it by the inadequacy of the Extradition Acts.
Although the White
White Paper declares the problems of international crime, there are no proposals designed to cope with the problem of extraterritoriality. The English approach to jurisdiction, expressed by Lord Halsbury, in MacLeod v. Attorney- General for New South Wales [1891] AC 453, remains territorial, subject to admiralty jurisdiction and piecemeal reforms relating to merchant shipping, hijacking, terrorism and similar problems. The few cases which come before the courts add little to the development of new concepts and we find ourselves deprived of thje impetus of other countries, e.g., the United States and Canada, forced to adopt more aggressive approaches to questions of jurisdiction.
With extradition, at least, there is now the opportunity for change. The Green Paper, and now the White Paper, propose far reaching reforms, including the signing of the European Convention on Extradition, adopting the enumerative classification of crimes and abolishing the "evidence rule". Surprisingly, the reforms relate only to foreign countries, leaving the