Key points for reflection:

• Jurisdiction in public international law: ‘the limits of the legal competence of a State … to make, apply, and enforce rules of conduct upon persons’
• Jurisdiction as the necessary corollary of State sovereignty and equality between States: resolution of competing claims
• Safeguarded by the fundamental duty of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States in the UN Charter
• Exercising jurisdiction: prescriptive, enforcement, and adjudicative
• Bases for claiming prescriptive jurisdiction:
• Settled principles: territory and nationality
• Contested principles: passive personality, the protective principle, and ‘universal jurisdiction’ based on the severity of the act rather than any jurisdictional nexus