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Comment by trasz | Hacker News Reader

It shouldn’t matter: jurisdiction depends on where the crime was committed, not on alleged victim’s nationality.

This only happens one way, with extradition to the US, thanks to worldwide bullying.

As a US resident, if I rolled a large boulder downhill and fatally crushed a small child across the Mexican or Canadian border, would I be liable to extradition?

There have been cases of US citizens literally shooting and killing Mexican children over the border, and extradition was refused.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernandez_v._Mesa

That is because the shooter was a border patrol agent and they get qualified immunity.

Again, this is something that only happens one way: if any other country was arbitrarily claiming immunity for their agent who murdered someone in the US, like the US did here, the US would carpet bomb them.

The morally correct way would be probably to go full Mossad and either kidnap, or disappear the perpetrator, but that can’t happen for political reasons. Same reason why Blackwater terrorists avoid consequences.

How does that makes it better?

I’m guessing not, as the general rule is that US doesn’t extradite it’s citizens.

The US does extradite to other countries depending on treaties. Recently there was two to Japan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/business/carlos-ghosn-esc...

Very, very rarely. I’m guessing in this case extradition was deeply profitable to US for some reason.

The US does extradite its citizens:

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/972784817/2-americans-extradi...

"Asking for a friend."

> jurisdiction depends on where the crime was committed

No, it doesn't. Sovereignty is inherently unlimited. Jurisdiction depends on the law of the party seeking to exercise it. Bringing someone before the court with jurisdiction may sometimes require external cooperation, but the terms of that are products of diplomacy; there's no hard and fast universal rules.

This is a maximalist view of sovereignty that happens to be common in very few countries on the planet, namely the ones not afraid to use violence against anyone stating the opposite: the US, China, Russia, and a handful of rogue states.

> This is a maximalist view of sovereignty that happens to be common in very few countries on the planet

Its actually obligatory under treaties of near universal acceptance; though of course nations are free (and some do) choose not to exercise jurisdiction beyond their borders outside of those areas where treaty requires it. Though I think the more common choice is to apply jurisdiction both to citizens/nationals irregardless of location for at least some offenses as well as general jurisdiction over national territory.

Its true that some countries, like the US, are more inclined than others to assert non-obligatory jurisdiction over acts by foreigners on foreign territory.

> Its actually obligatory under treaties of near universal acceptance;

Of course - such treaties, in order to be ratified by as many countries as possible, go for the minimum common denominator, which must be able to accomodate the views of such maximalists too.

Also, to be fair, the ranks of these maximalists tends to change with the fortunes of military power. France and UK, for example, used to be much more aggressive in claiming entitlements.

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