Opinion ID: 781722
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Treaty-Based Jurisdiction: The Hague and Montreal Conventions

Text: 78 Treaty law also may provide a basis for a State's action independent of the principles of customary international law. A treaty creates obligations in States parties to it that may differ from those of customary international law, and it generally is immaterial whether customary international law points in the same or in a different direction than the treaty obligation. See, e.g., The Tunis and Morocco Nationality Decrees Case, (Great Britain v. France) 1923 P.C.I.J. (ser. B) No. 4, at 24 (Feb. 7) (Permanent Court of International Justice, predecessor of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), recognizing that a country's treaty obligations could supersede the general norms of customary international law for the purpose of determining which questions of nationality fall within the domaine réservé of a State); see also Clive Parry, The Sources and Evidences of International Law 33 (1965) ([I]f two or more States have unequivocally agreed to something by treaty, in relation to the matter in hand nothing other than the treaty has much relevance.). 79 Norms of customary international law can vitiate a treaty's effect only in the rare instance where the treaty or a provision thereof violates one of the few so-called peremptory norms of international law, or  jus cogens.  See, e.g., United States v. Matta-Ballesteros, 71 F.3d 754, 4 n. 5 (9th Cir.1995) (stating, in dicta, that [ j ] us cogens norms, which are nonderogable and peremptory, enjoy the highest status within customary international law, are binding on all nations, and can not [sic] be preempted by treaty); Comm. of United States Citizens Living in Nicaragua, 859 F.2d at 940 (stating in dicta that [a] treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)); see also Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May 23, 1969, art. 53, 1155 U.N.T.S. 332, 344, S. Exec. Doc. L, 92-1 (Vienna Convention) 28 (stating that a treaty is void if it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character); Ian Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law 627 (5th ed. 1999). A treaty between two nations to engage in the slave trade, for example, would be void; a treaty to engage in the ivory trade, though repugnant to many contemporaries, would not be. 80 Beginning with the Hague Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, Dec. 16, 1970, 22 U.S.T. 1641, 860 U.N.T.S. 105, a number of international treaties have provided that where an individual who has committed an offense proscribed by the treaty is present in a State party to the treaty, the State is obliged either to prosecute the offender (even if the offense was extraterritorial) or to extradite the offender for prosecution by another State party to the convention. 29 id.; see Case Concerning the Arrest Warrant of 11 Apr. 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium), 41 I.L.M. 536, 560 (2002) (separate opinion of ICJ President Guillaume ¶¶ 7-9) (listing agreements); Michael P. Scharf, Symposium: Universal Jurisdiction: Myths, Realities, and Prospects: Application of Treaty-Based Universal Jurisdiction to Nationals of Non-Party States, 35 New Eng. L. Rev. 363, 363-66 & nn. 4-13 (2001) (listing conventions that require States parties to either extradite or prosecute offenders). 81 As discussed above at Section I.A.4, the Montreal Convention is one such treaty. The express purpose of the Convention is to ensure that terrorists who commit crimes on or against aircraft cannot take refuge in countries whose courts otherwise might have lacked jurisdiction over an offense against a foreign-flag aircraft that transpired either in another State or in international airspace. See Montreal Conv., art. 5, 24 U.S.T. at 565. 82 The Montreal Convention, unlike the customary international law principles of criminal jurisdiction (including universal jurisdiction), creates a basis for the assertion of jurisdiction that is moored in a process of formal lawmaking and that is binding only on the States that accede to it. The jurisdiction thus created is not a species of universal jurisdiction, but a jurisdictional agreement among contracting States to extradite or prosecute offenders who commit the acts proscribed by the treaty — that is, the agreements between contracting States create aut dedere aut punire (extradite or prosecute) jurisdiction. Rosalyn Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It 64 (1994). 83 Article 1 of the Montreal Convention provides: 84 1. Any person commits an offence if he unlawfully and intentionally: 85 ... 86 (c) places or causes to be placed on an aircraft in service, by any means whatsoever, a device or substance which is likely to destroy that aircraft, or to cause damage to it which renders it incapable of flight, or to cause damage to it which is likely to endanger its safety in flight[.] 87 24 U.S.T. at 565. Section 2 of that article makes it an offense for anyone to attempt to commit such an offense or to act as an accomplice to one who commits such an offense. Id. Article 7 of the Convention establishes aut dedere aut punire jurisdiction, stating in relevant part: 88 The Contracting State in the territory of which the alleged offender is found shall, if it does not extradite him, be obliged, without exception whatsoever and whether or not the offence was committed in its territory, to submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution. 89 Id. 90