ABSTRACT
Forms of jurisdiction ‘Jurisdiction’ is a word which must be used with extreme caution. It sounds impressively technical, and yet many people think that they have a vague idea of what it means; there is therefore a temptation to use the word without stopping to ask what it means. In fact, it can have a large number of different meanings.1 Sometimes it simply means territory; for instance, in cases concerning the custody of children, British courts may order a party not to take the child ‘out of the jurisdiction of the court’, which means ‘out of Britain’. The phrase ‘domestic jurisdiction’, as used in the United Nations Charter, has a specialized meaning.2 But most often ‘juris diction’ refers to powers exercised by a state over persons, property, or events. But, here again, the term is ambiguous, for the powers under consideration may be powers to legislate in respect of the persons, prop erty, or events in question (legislative or prescriptive jurisdiction), the powers of a state’s courts to hear cases concerning the persons, property or events in question (judicial or adjudicative jurisdiction), or the powers of physical interference exercised by the executive, such as the arrest of persons, seizure of property, and so on (enforcement jurisdiction).
