ABSTRACT
The term jurisdiction has many meanings but in the present context it refers to the legal competence of a State to make, apply, and enforce rules with regard to persons, property and situations/events outside its territory and to the limits of that competence. Three types of jurisdiction can be distinguished. The best description of each is contained in Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States of which the major aspects are set out in the following three points:
• Jurisdiction to prescribe, ‘i.e. to make its [a State’s] law applicable to the activities, relations, or status of persons, or the interests of persons in things, whether by legislation, by executive act or order, by administrative rule or regulation, or by determination of a court’ (s 401(a)).
