Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is the legal term for the legal authority held by a legal entity to enact justice. Jurisdiction is rarely claimed to be complete: rather it is limited for example by geography, subject matter, or other factor. It is only within the scope of such jurisdiction that, for example, the parties to a dispute have standing to bring the matter before a judge, who has power to decide it authoritatively.
A "jurisdiction" can also be understood as a category name for any separate polity legally constituted as such — for any government with legislative and other legal power over a particular territory, whether that area is a nation state or some smaller region. Thus, Australia, Arizona, North Yorkshire and New York City are each "a jurisdiction". In federations like the United States, jurisdiction in this polity sense applies at multiple levels.
Jurisdiction draws its substance from international law, conflict of laws, constitutional law, and is often thought to include the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government to pursue policies and allocate resources so as to best serve the needs of society.

International dimension

Generally, international laws and treaties provide agreements which nations agree to be bound to. Such agreements are not always established or maintained. Extraterritorial jurisdiction is exercised through three principles outlined in the UN charter. These are equality of states, territorial sovereignty and non-intervention. This raises questions of when can many states prescribe or enforce jurisdiction. The Lotus case establishes two key rules to the prescription and enforcement of jurisdiction. The case outlines that jurisdiction is territorial and that a state may not exercise its jurisdiction in the territory of another state unless there is a rule that permits this. On that same note, states enjoy a wide measure of discretion to prescribe jurisdiction over persons, property and acts within their own territory unless there was a rule that prohibits this.

Political issue

organizations provide mechanisms whereby disputes between nations may be resolved through arbitration or mediation. When a country is recognized as de jure, it is an acknowledgment by the other de jure nations that the country has sovereignty and the right to exist.
However, it is often at the discretion of each nation whether to co-operate or participate. If a nation does agree to participate in activities of the supranational bodies and accept decisions, the nation is giving up its sovereign authority and thereby allocating power to these bodies.
Insofar as these bodies or nominated individuals may resolve disputes through judicial or quasi-judicial means, or promote treaty obligations in the nature of laws, the power ceded to these bodies cumulatively represents its own jurisdiction. But no matter how powerful each body may appear to be, the extent to which any of their judgments may be enforced, or proposed treaties and conventions may become, or remain, effective within the territorial boundaries of each nation is a political matter under the sovereign control of each nation.

International and municipal

The fact that international organizations, courts and tribunals have been created raises the difficult question of how to coordinate their activities with those of national courts. If the two sets of bodies do not have concurrent jurisdiction but, as in the case of the International Criminal Court, the relationship is expressly based on the principle of complementarity, i.e., the international court is subsidiary or complementary to national courts, the difficulty is avoided. But if the jurisdiction claimed is concurrent or, as in the case of International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the international tribunal is to prevail over national courts, the problems are more difficult to resolve politically.
The idea of universal jurisdiction is fundamental to the operation of global organizations such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, which jointly assert the benefit of maintaining legal entities with jurisdiction over a wide range of matters of significance to nations. Under Article 34 Statute of the ICJ only nations may be parties in cases before the Court and, under Article 36, the jurisdiction comprises all cases which the parties refer to it and all matters specially provided for in the Charter of the United Nations or in treaties and conventions in force. But, to invoke the jurisdiction in any given case, all the parties have to accept the prospective judgment as binding. This reduces the risk of wasting the Court's time.
Despite the safeguards built into the constitutions of most of these organizations, courts and tribunals, the concept of universal jurisdiction is controversial among those nations which prefer unilateral to multilateral solutions through the use of executive or military authority, sometimes described as realpolitik-based diplomacy.
Within other international contexts, there are intergovernmental organizations such as the World Trade Organization that have socially and economically significant dispute resolution functions but, again, even though their jurisdiction may be invoked to hear the cases, the power to enforce their decisions is at the will of the nations affected, save that the WTO is permitted to allow retaliatory action by successful nations against those nations found to be in breach of international trade law. At a regional level, groups of nations can create political and legal bodies with sometimes complicated patchworks of overlapping provisions detailing the jurisdictional relationships between the member states and providing for some degree of harmonization between their national legislative and judicial functions, for example, the European Union and African Union both have the potential to become federated nations although the political barriers to such unification in the face of entrenched nationalism will be very difficult to overcome. Each such group may form transnational institutions with declared legislative or judicial powers. For example, in Europe, the European Court of Justice has been given jurisdiction as the ultimate appellate court to the member states on issues of European law. This jurisdiction is entrenched, and its authority could only be denied by a member nation if that member nation asserts its sovereignty and withdraws from the union.

Law

The standard treaties and conventions leave the issue of implementation to each nation, i.e. there is no general rule in international law that treaties have direct effect in municipal law, but some nations, by virtue of their membership of supranational bodies, allow the direct incorporation of rights or enact legislation to honor their international commitments. Hence, citizens in those nations can invoke the jurisdiction of local courts to enforce rights granted under international law wherever there is incorporation. If there is no direct effect or legislation, there are two theories to justify the courts incorporating international into municipal law:

Monism
Dualism

In the United States, the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution makes all treaties that have been ratified under the authority of the United States and customary international law to be a part of the "Supreme Law of the Land" As such, the law of the land is binding on the federal government as well as on state and local governments. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, the treaty power authorizes Congress to legislate under the Necessary and Proper Clause in areas beyond those specifically conferred on Congress.

International

This concerns the relationships both between courts in different jurisdictions, and between courts within the same jurisdiction. The usual legal doctrine under which questions of jurisdiction are decided is termed forum non conveniens.
To deal with the issue of forum shopping, nations are urged to adopt more positive rules on conflict of laws. The Hague Conference and other international bodies have made recommendations on jurisdictional matters, but litigants with the encouragement of lawyers on a contingent fee continue to shop for forums.

Jurisdictional principles

Under international law there are different principles that are recognized to establish a state's ability to exercise criminal jurisdiction when it comes to a person. There is no hierarchy when it comes to any of the principles. States must therefore work together to solve issues of who may exercise their jurisdiction when it comes to issues of multiple principles being allowed. The principles are Territorial Principle, Nationality Principle, Passive Personality Principle, Protective Principle, Universality Principle
Territorial principle: This principle states that the State where the crime has been committed may exercise jurisdiction. This is one of the most straightforward and least controversial of the principles. This is also the only principle that is territorial in nature; all other forms are extraterritorial.
Nationality principle : This principle is based around a person's nationality and allows States to exercise jurisdiction when it comes to their nationality, both within and outside the State's territory. Seeing as the territoriality principle already gives the State the right to exercise jurisdiction, this principle is primarily used as a justification for prosecuting crimes committed abroad by a States nationals. There is a growing trend to allow States to also apply this principle to permanent residents abroad as well, sec 7; Finland Criminal Code, sec 6; Iceland Criminal Code, art 5; Latvia Criminal Code, sec 4; Netherlands Criminal Code, art 7; Norway Criminal Code, sec 12; Swedish Criminal Code, sec 2; Lithuania Criminal Code.
Passive Personality Principle: This principle is similar to the Nationality Principle, except you are exercising jurisdiction against a foreign national that has committed a criminal act against its own national. The idea is that a State has a duty to protect its nationals and therefore if someone harms their nationals that State has the right to prosecute the accused.
Protective principle: This principle allows States to exercise jurisdiction when it comes to foreign nationals for acts committed outside their territory that have or are intended to have a prejudicial impact upon the State. It is especially used when it comes to matters of national security.
Universality principle: This is the broadest of all the principles. The basis is that a State has the right, sometimes even the obligation, to exercise jurisdiction when it comes to the most serious violations of international criminal law; for example genocide, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial executions, war crimes, torture, and forced disappearances. This principle also goes further than the other principles as there is attached to it the obligation to either prosecute the accused or extradite them to a State that will, known as aut dedere aut judicare.