Opinion ID: 385703
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The International Jurisdiction of States

Text: 29 The Restatement (Second) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States distinguishes two types of jurisdiction of a state: jurisdiction to prescribe and jurisdiction to enforce. 78 Jurisdiction to prescribe signifies a state's authority to enact laws governing the conduct, relations, status or interests of persons or things, whether by legislation, executive act or order, or administrative rule or regulation. 79 Jurisdiction to enforce, by contrast, describes a state's authority to compel compliance or impose sanctions for noncompliance with its administrative or judicial orders. 80 International law imposes different limitations upon a state's exercise of its jurisdiction, depending upon whether the jurisdiction exercised is prescriptive or enforcement jurisdiction. 81 30 Traditionally, a state has plenary power to prescribe rules within its own territorial boundaries. 82 Conversely, under traditional principles of absolute territoriality, (the laws of a nation) can have no force to control the sovereignty or rights of any other nation within its own jurisdiction. 83 Over time these rigid principles have yielded to certain exceptions. Thus, the current Restatement recognizes that a state has prescriptive jurisdiction not only over conduct, things, status or interests within its territory, 84 but also over conduct outside its territory which has or is intended to have substantial effects within its territory 85 as well as conduct of its nationals even when they are outside its borders. 86 31 When an American court orders enforcement of a subpoena requiring the production of documents and threatens penalties for noncompliance with that subpoena, it invokes the enforcement jurisdiction, rather than the prescriptive jurisdiction, of the United States. 87 The two types of jurisdiction are not geographically coextensive (a) state having jurisdiction to prescribe a rule of law does not necessarily have jurisdiction to enforce it in all cases, 88 for unlike a state's prescriptive jurisdiction, which is not strictly limited by territorial boundaries, enforcement jurisdiction by and large continues to be strictly territorial. 89 The Restatement illustrates this disjunction with the following hypothetical: 32 X is a national of state A residing in state B. A has jurisdiction to prescribe a rule subjecting X to punishment if he fails to return to A for military service. X does not return. A has no jurisdiction to enforce its rule by action against X in the territory of B. 90 33 If a state should enforce a rule which it does not have jurisdiction to enforce, it violates international law, thus giving rise to a claim by the state adversely affected which may then be adjudicated in an appropriate international forum. 91 This would be true even if the state had jurisdiction to prescribe the rule in the first place. 34 Again, the Restatement provides a clear illustration of how such a claim might arise: 35 X, a national of state A, kills a man in the territory of state B, and escapes to A. Public officers of B seize X in the territory of A and bring him back to B for trial. B has jurisdiction to prescribe criminal rules dealing with the conduct of X but no jurisdiction to take enforcement action in the territory of A. A has a claim against B under the rule (of international law) stated in this Section. 92 36 Similarly, the district court's enforcement order here violates the above principles of international law not because the United States lacks jurisdiction to prescribe rules relating to the antitrust matters under investigation, but because the court's order represents an attempt by the U. S. to exercise its enforcement jurisdiction within foreign territory before its prescriptive jurisdiction over the investigated conduct has been proved to exist. 37 More than a decade ago, one commentator analyzed a situation identical to the one before us, under principles of international law, in the form of a hypothetical problem: 38 (Suppose a) court orders aliens to produce documents both located abroad and related to their business activities abroad. The only valid basis of legislative (prescriptive) jurisdiction which could be invoked is the ... (so-called) effects doctrine. It must be proved that the commercial activities engaged in abroad had a harmful effect on the economy in the forum country. When a court, however, orders the production of documents, it is still in its investigatory stage. The documents are needed to prove the effects. Hence, the order is made before there is a finding as to whether or not effects exist. This means that the order is issued before legislative jurisdiction is proved to exist. Consequently, this would be an exercise of enforcement jurisdiction without legislative jurisdiction and, thus, contrary to international law. 93 39 Two separate conferences of the International Law Association have also studied this problem and reached the same conclusion that the district court's proposed enforcement of the administrative subpoena, by compelling the conduct in France of French nationals, would violate international law. The Fifty-First Conference, held in Tokoyo, initially concluded that: 40 It is difficult to find any authority under international law for the issuance of orders compelling the production of documents from abroad. The documents are admittedly located in the territory of another State. To assume jurisdiction over documents located abroad in advance of a finding of effect upon commerce raises the greatest doubts among non-Americans as to the validity of such orders. 94 41 The Fifty-Second Conference of the International Law Association, held in Helsinki, went on to draw a clear distinction between the type of production ordered in DeSmedt 95 and the type ordered here: 42 (T)he basic principle is that the jurisdiction to order production of documents must be commensurate with the limits of the legislative (prescriptive) jurisdiction to regulate the matters to which the documents relate. Thus, the true legal position will be as follows: 43 (1) Where a State requires a local branch (of a foreign company) to produce documents relating to its own affairs, the demand cannot be resisted merely because the documents are not within the jurisdiction or that they belong to a non-resident alien. A case may arise when the discovery is prohibited by his lex situs (the law of the residence of the alien and the documents). In such case, each State is acting within its jurisdiction, the one in requiring production and the other in forbidding it, and a conflict arises. 44 (4) Where, however, a State proceeds against a local branch to enforce the production of documents situate abroad and moreover relating to the affairs or to activities outside the jurisdiction of the head-office of the non-resident alien, the requirement is only lawful if the enforcing State has, in fact, substantive jurisdiction to enquire into those affairs and activities. A State abuses its powers if it uses the process of its courts to reach further than its legislative jurisdiction properly extends. 96 45 By this analysis, the district court's enforcement of the FTC's subpoenas so served would clearly extend American enforcement jurisdiction beyond the limits of its prescriptive jurisdiction. As such, the district court's enforcement order violated a fundamental principle of international law. 46