	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. Unfortunately, many of the cases do little more than note that due process restrictions mark the frontier of the authority to enact and enforce American law abroad. 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. Current Extent of American Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction

			Federal Law

				Express

Congress's declaration that a particular statute is to apply outside of the United States is the most obvious evidence of intent to create extraterritorial jurisdiction. Some enjoy extraterritorial application under any of a number of these and other explicit jurisdictional circumstances. Consequently, investigations within another country of extraterritorial federal crimes without the consent or at least acquiescence of the host country are extremely rare. Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties and Agreements

Congress has endorsed diplomatic efforts to increase multinational cooperative law enforcement activities. Cooperative Efforts

American law enforcement officials have historically used other, often less formal, cooperative methods overseas to investigate and prosecute extraterritorial offenses. For instance, the Foreign Evidence Request Efficiency Act of 2009 authorizes Justice Department attorneys to petition federal judges for any of a series of orders to facilitate investigations in this country by foreign law enforcement authorities. 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 property of foreign nationals outside the United States, unless the property owner has some "previous significant voluntary connections with the United States." 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:
Upon application of the United States, filed before return of an indictment, indicating that evidence of an offense is in a foreign country, the district court before which a grand jury is impaneled to investigate the offense shall suspend the running of the statute of limitations for the offense if the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that an official request has been made for such evidence and that it reasonably appears, or reasonably appeared at the time the request was made, that such evidence is, or was, in such foreign country. 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. Congress has enacted both general and specific venue statutes governing extraterritorial offenses. Otherwise, depositions may be ordered only under exceptional circumstances. As general matter, depositions are to be taken in the same manner as depositions in civil cases. § 963 (conspiracy or attempt to violate the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act)

		Model Penal Code

§1.03 Territorial Applicability
(1) Except as otherwise provided in this Section, a person may be convicted under the law of this State of an offense committed by his own conduct or the conduct of another for which he is legally accountable if:
(a) either the conduct that is an element of the offense or the result that is such an element occurs within this State; or
(b) conduct occurring outside the State is sufficient under the law of this State to constitute an attempt to commit an offense within the State; or
(c) conduct occurring outside the State is sufficient under the law of this State to constitute a conspiracy to commit an offense within the state and an overt act in furtherance of such conspiracy occurs within the state; or
(d) conduct occurring within the State establishes complicity in the commission of, or an attempt, solicitation or conspiracy to commit , an offense in another jurisdiction that also is an offense under the law of this State; or
(e) the offense consists of the omission to perform a legal duty imposed by the law of this State with respect to domicile, residence or a relationship to a person, thing or transaction in the State; or
(f) the offense is based on a statute of this State that expressly prohibits conduct outside the State, when the conduct bears a reasonable relation to a legitimate interest of this State and the actor knows or should know that his conduct is likely to affect that interest. 1660 (2009) 
Zachary D. Clopton, Bowman Lives: The Extraterritorial Application of U.S. Criminal Law After Morrison v. National Australia Bank , 67 NYU Ann. 647 (2008)
[author name scrubbed], Substantive Due Process and U.S. L. Rev.
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 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 further 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 available in an abridged version, stripped of its attachments, bibliography, footnotes, and most of its citations to authority, as CRS Report RS22497, Extraterritorial Application of American Criminal Law: An Abbreviated Sketch, by [author name scrubbed].