BOH

So when a passenger lands at an airport having travelled internationally and prior to going through Passport Control, technically which country is the passenger in and under whose legal jurisdiction? is it the the arrival country (even though the pax still has not actually entered the country) or still the country of departure - however unlikely the latter sounds?

I guess is the arriving country but I wonder how that would work because at that point the pax has not officially crossed the border and been "accepted" by the officials of the arrival country - the pax still could be refused entry.

GUWonder

The country on whose territory you are standing -- whether or not you are admitted into a country or not upon presentation of yourself at the port of entry -- is how it usually is. An ordinary traveler being refused entry at the country's port of entry when on that country's soil generally provides no protection from being subjected to the jurisdiction of the country where that ordinary person is physically located at the time.

Often1

If you are standing in the US, you are in the US. The fact that immigration formalities may not yet have taken place and could result in your exclusion has nothing to do with the fact that you are in the US (or UK and so on).

The location of the physical place where a CBP Officer (or other broder force) happens to stand is a matter of administrative and architectural convenience.

MSPeconomist

The question could be a bit more interesting for preclearance airports. Still, I suspect that the answer depends on who owns the land on which one sit standing.

Also, IIRC for things that could happen during a flight, the jurisdiction seems to be the country of the airline operating the flight.

GUWonder

Not really. Land ownership doesn't change a thing. What may change things is determined by bilateral or other international agreements on an state-level, but that's not relevant to any of the US CBP Preclearance airports with common carrier flights.

US CBP Preclearance facilities outside of the US are not US territory. Ordinary travelers in those CBP Preclearance facilities -- in say Canada, elsewhere in the Americas outside the US, in Ireland and in the UAE -- are subject to the jurisdictional authority of the host country and are in fact in those other countries even after being cleared by CBP to enter and remain in the CBP Preclearance section of the foreign country's port(s).

Let's take the case of a wanted criminal in Canada or in Ireland who is immune from prosecution in the US and has US-recognized diplomatic immunity but happens to not be immune from prosecution in Canada and Ireland. Such person getting into the CBP Preclearance area at a Canadian or Irish airport provides the person no protection from being arrested by the law enforcement authorities of the country hosting the CBP Preclearance facility where that Irish/Canadian-wanted criminal got airside into the CBP Preclearance facility as a person US CBP considered admissible.

LondonElite

None of these things make any difference at all. At a pre-clearance facility you are still in the same country. It is merely an administrative formality. Some people also think that embassies around the world are 'domestic soil' of the country in question. Not so.

Badenoch

Pre-clearance facilities in Canada are not under the control of American authorities. A person who commits a serious crime in a pre-clearance facility in Toronto will be arrested by Canadian police and prosecuted by the Canadian court system. Similarly a person who commits a serious crime between getting off the plane and being cleared by customs in any country will be prosecuted by that country.

Often1

A lot of urban myths.

Taking the US as an example, from the time the aircraft enters US airspace, you are in the US. That is true whether you precleared before boarding or will present yourself at CBP upon arrival.

How you are handled may or may not be a matter of a bilateral agreement between the US and some other country, but that has nothing to do with "where" you are.

Eastbay1K

... not limited to serious crimes.

If the OP's premise had any basis in fact, I'd never have seen CPB authorities on the jetway as I disembark, with dogs, looking for selected arriving passengers.

TBD

There's a youtube video on this!

YVR Cockroach

Quite a few years ago, I arrived at a U.S. airport on a pre-cleared international flight. A/c was small enough that I could hear uniformed officials asking a particular passenger if he was so and so as he exited the door, where the subsequently arrested him..

On a pre-2001 transit through HNL (where there used to be some semblance of sterile transit), CBP (or rather, INS back then) were stepping up document checks of passengers in the jet way disembarking to transit for the connecting code-share "through" flight.

BOH

Interesting point re embassies. In the past I recall that a foreign fugitive in a country was able to escape justice by getting to his country's embassy (or an embassy from a friendly country to their own), upon which the local police had no jurisdiction and could not arrest him/her. Isn't that how Julian Assange evaded any form of local arrest / extradition?

Scots_Al

When you arrive at Basel Airport, and before Swiss passport control, you are in France.

Of course, you�re still on French soil after clearing Swiss passport control too, though Swiss laws are upheld by the Swiss police (and you may also encounter French police legally going about their business, too).

Fairly niche example, however!

LondonElite

You can read about the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, but in a nutshell, the premises of a foreign mission are inviolable and not to be entered by the host country without the permission of the head of mission. That does not change the fact that the Canadian embassy in Mexico City is on Mexican soil. When you enter the embassy you are not in Canada, nor are you in quasi-Canada, you are in Mexico. Julian Assange was holed up in the embassy because the Ecuadorian ambassador wouldn't let the Metropolitan Police into the building.

GUWonder

BSL and part of GVA are indeed a sort of different dynamic. But you're still in the country where you are in, whether waiting in line to clear passport control or having just walked by the passport control after being cleared for entry.

Embassies are not foreign soil. It's just that an embassy has a legally-privileged status vis-a-vis the host country based on the embassy being a recognized diplomatic facility for a recognized sovereign in the country hosting the embassy. That is why the UK couldn't just raid the Ecuadorian embassy to do a snatch job inside the premises -- although they did think about trying to snatch him if he were to stick his head/body out of a window or onto a balcony. If it was a consulate, rather than an embassy, it's even less privileged than an embassy in terms of action vis-a-vis the hosting country's authorities; but even then its sort of privileged from host country action. Whether or not an embassy-hosting country is willing to violate international law vis-a-vis an embassy recognized as such by the host country, the host-country's recognized foreign embassies are not foreign soil. The hosted embassies are just legally privileged on the soil of the country hosting them.