	Introduction

Crime is ordinarily proscribed, tried, and punished according to the laws of the place where it occurs. American criminal law applies beyond the geographical confines of the United States, however, under certain limited circumstances. Other limitations appear elsewhere in the Constitution, most notably in the due process clauses of the Fifth Amendment. The first of these rules holds that a statute that is silent on the question of its application abroad will be construed to have only domestic application unless there is a clear indication of some broader intent. At least until recently, the second rule of construction stated that the nature and purpose of a statute may provide an indication of whether Congress intended a statute to apply beyond the confines of the United States. The Court in RJR Nabisco , another civil case, however, may have changed that. Neither Congress nor the courts are bound to the dictates of international law when enacting or interpreting statutes with extraterritorial application. For this reason, the courts interpret legislation with the presumption that Congress or the state legislature intends its laws to be applied within the bounds of international law, unless it indicates otherwise. Current Extent of American Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction

Congress has expressly provided for the extraterritorial application of federal criminal law most often by outlawing various forms of misconduct when they occur "within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States." Cooperative Efforts : American law enforcement officials have historically used other, often less formal, cooperative methods overseas to investigate and prosecute extraterritorial offenses. Search and Seizure Abroad : Overseas cooperative law enforcement assistance occasionally has Fourth Amendment implications. The Supreme Court's United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez decision makes it clear that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the search of the overseas property of foreign nationals unless the property owner has some "previous significant voluntary connections with the United States." Moreover, the statute of limitations is suspended or tolled during any period in which the accused is a fugitive. Whatever the applicable statute of limitations, Section 3292 authorizes the federal courts to suspend it in order to await the arrival of evidence requested of a foreign government. More recent extradition treaties address other traditional features of the nation's earlier agreements that complicate extradition, most notably the nationality exception, the political offense exception, and the practice of limiting extradition to a list of specifically designated offenses. Venue : Federal crimes committed within the United States must be tried where they occur. Congress has enacted both general and specific venue statutes governing extraterritorial offenses. Mutual legal assistance treaties and similar agreements generally contain provisions to facilitate a transfer of custody of foreign witnesses who are imprisoned overseas and in other instances to elicit assistance to encourage foreign nationals to come to this country and testify voluntarily.
Criminal law is usually territorial. It is a matter of the law of the place where it occurs. Nevertheless, a number of American criminal laws apply extraterritorially outside of the United States. Application is generally a question of legislative intent, express or implied. There are two exceptions. First, the statute must come within Congress's constitutional authority to enact. Second, neither the statute nor its application may violate due process or any other constitutional prohibition.
Claims of implied extraterritoriality must overcome additional obstacles. Federal laws are presumed to apply only within the United States, unless Congress clearly provides otherwise. Moreover, the courts will also presume that Congress intends its statutes to be applied in a manner that does not offend international law.
Historically, in order to overcome these presumptions, the lower federal courts have read certain vintage Supreme Court cases broadly. The Supreme Court's recent pronouncements in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, Ltd. and RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, however, suggest a far more restrictive view.
Although the crimes over which the United States has extraterritorial jurisdiction may be many, so are the obstacles to their enforcement. For both practical and diplomatic reasons, criminal investigations within another country require the acquiescence, consent, or preferably the assistance, of the authorities of the host country. The United States has mutual legal assistance treaties with several countries designed to formalize such cooperative law enforcement assistance. It has agreements for the same purpose in many other instances. Cooperation, however, may introduce new obstacles. Searches and interrogations carried out jointly with foreign officials, certainly if they involve Americans, must be conducted within the confines of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. And the Sixth Amendment imposes limits upon the use in American criminal trials of depositions taken abroad.
The nation's recently negotiated extradition treaties address some of the features of earlier agreements which complicate extradition for extraterritorial offenses, that is, dual criminality requirements; reluctance to recognize extraterritorial jurisdiction; and exemptions on the basis of nationality or political offenses. To facilitate the prosecution of federal crimes with extraterritorial application Congress has enacted special venue, statute of limitations, and evidentiary statutes. To further cooperative efforts, it enacted the Foreign Evidence Request Efficiency Act, P.L. 111-79, which authorizes federal courts to issue search warrants, subpoenas, and other orders to facilitate criminal investigations in this country on behalf of foreign law enforcement officials.
This report is an abridged version of a report, which with citations to authority, footnotes, attachments, and bibliography, appears as CRS Report 94-166, Extraterritorial Application of American Criminal Law, by Charles Doyle.