Territorial law

“ That where circumstances connected with different territories are concerned, wise rules for the selection of a law will generally give better effect to the expectations of the parties than an exclusive adherence to the territorial law of the court ”

“ While the 34th section of the Judiciary Act is not applicable to territories, the arguments of policy in favor of having the state courts declare the law of the state are applicable to the question of whether or not territorial courts should declare the law of the territories with the least possible interference. ”

“ Great interests have grown up under the Territorial laws over a country more than five times greater in extent than the original thirteen States; and these interests, corporate or otherwise, have been cherished and consolidated by a benign policy, without any one supposing the law- making power had united with the Judiciary, under the universal sanction of the whole country, to usurp a jurisdiction which did not belong to them. ”

“ The sixth resolution of the series declares at what time a State may form a Constitution and decide upon her domestic institutions. I deny this right to the territorial condition, because the Territory belongs in common to the States. Every citizen of the United States, as a joint owner of that Territory, has a right to go into it with any property which he may possess. These territorial inhabitants require municipal law, police, and government. They should have them, but they should be restricted to their own necessities. ”

“ When territorial governments are formed, they are clothed with many of the attributes of sovereignty. These governments are at liberty to legislate and to provide for the well-being of the people, and subject to the provisions of their "organic law," have the complete control of local and police regulations. ”

“ With his entrance into a State, an alien, unless he belongs to the class of those who enjoy so-called exterritoriality, falls at once under such State's territorial supremacy, although he remains at the same time under the personal supremacy of his home State. Such alien is therefore under the jurisdiction of the State in which he stays, and is responsible to such State for all acts he commits on its territory. ”

“ Congress has power “to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property belonging to the United States.”342 This means the power to govern, a power necessary to sovereignty, and the “inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory; or, as the jurisdiction over a Territory does not belong to any State in the Union, its government lies by implication (if not by necessity) with the United States.”343
In creating a territorial jurisdiction, Congress exercises, but does not part with its powers. The power to govern Territories is not conditioned. ”

“ But no sovereignty can extend its jurisdiction beyond it own territorial limits so as to relieve those born under and subject to another jurisdiction from their obligations or duties thereto, nor can the municipal law of one State interfere with the duties or obligations which its citizens incur while voluntarily resident in such foreign State and without the jurisdiction of their own country. ”

“ That the act of state doctrine is rooted in a well-established concept of international law is evidenced by the practice of other countries. These countries, without employing any act of state doctrine, afford substantial respect to acts of foreign states occurring within their territorial confines. [6] Our act of state doctrine, as formulated in past decisions of the Court, carries the territorial concept one step further. It precludes a challenge to the validity of foreign law on the ordinary conflict of laws ground of repugnancy to the public policy of the forum. ”

“ This qualification of the territorial principle in the case of vessels of the flag was urged by Mr. Webster while Secretary of State, in his letter to Lord Ashburton [9] of August 1, 1842, quoted with approval in United States v. Rodgers, supra, 150 U.S. 264, 265, 14 S.Ct. 109, 37 L.Ed. 1071. Subject to the right of the territorial sovereignty to assert jurisdiction over offenses disturbing the peace of the port, it has been supported by writers on international law, and has been recognized by France, Belgium, and other continental countries, as well as by England and the United States. ”

“ On the other hand, if they are on land not officially, but for purposes of pleasure and recreation, they are under the territorial supremacy of the littoral State like any other foreigners, and they may be punished for crimes committed ashore. ”

“ For, besides the admitted incapacity of a corporation of one State to exercise its powers in another State, except with the assent or permission, expressed or implied, of the latter, it is a principle 'as inviolable as it is fundamental and conservative, that the right to hold land, and mode of acquiring title to land, must depend altogether on the local law of the territorial sovereign.' Runyan v. ”

“ However, where the exercising of a power requires the combined action of several territorial communities, one of those communities or one of their associations may be authorised by statute to organise such combined action. In the territorial communities of the Republic, the State representative, representing each of the Members of the Government, shall be responsible for national interests, administrative supervision and compliance with the law. ”

“ The State is responsible for establishing an overall policy in land, insular and maritime border areas, preserving the territorial integrity, sovereignty, security, defense, national identity, diversity and environment in accordance with cultural, economic and social development and integration. Taking into account the inherent nature of each border region through special financial allocations, an Organic Law on Borders shall determine the obligations and objectives comprising this responsibility. ”

“ The littoral State can exclusively exercise police and control within its maritime belt in the interest of its custom-house duties, the secrecy of its coast fortifications, and the like. Thus foreign vessels can be ordered to take certain routes and to avoid others.
(4) The littoral State can make laws and regulations regarding maritime ceremonials to be observed by such foreign merchantmen as enter its territorial maritime belt. ”

“ The Ordinance's arrangement for expansion included opening settlement of the area known as the Northwest Territory, providing civil government, and ensuring settlers the protection of Common Law under territorial government until permanent State governments could be created. ”

“ Where the coasts of two States are opposite or adjacent to each other, neither of the two States is entitled, failing agreement between them to the contrary, to extend its territorial sea beyond the median line every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points on the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial seas of each of the two States is measured. ”

“ Each party declares that its general policy with regard to the Mediterranean is directed to the maintenance of the territorial status quo, and that it is therefore resolved to preserve intact its rights over its insular and maritime possessions within the Mediterranean. Each party declares, further, that, should circumstances arise which would tend to alter the existing territorial status quo, it will communicate with the other party in order to afford it the opportunity to concert, if desired, by mutual agreement the course of action which the two parties shall adopt in common. ”

“ In exercising their rights and performing their duties under this Convention, States Parties shall refrain from any threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. ”

“ Only by slow degrees does the notion of territorial membership arise and make good its claim to legal recognition. Gradually the government and the laws cease to be exclusively national and personal, and become in part territorial also. ”

“ The extent to which a nation can extend its power into the sea for any purpose is subject to the consent of other nations, and assertions of jurisdiction to different distances may be recognized for different purposes. [60] In a manner of speaking, a nation which purports to exercise any rights to a given distance in the sea may be said to have a maritime boundary at that distance. But such a boundary, even if it delimits territorial waters, confers rights more limited than a land boundary. ”

“ The coastal State may, where necessary having regard to the safety of navigation, require foreign ships exercising the right of innocent passage through its territorial sea to use such sea lanes and traffic separation schemes as it may designate or prescribe for the regulation of the passage of ships. ”

“ For the purposes of this Convention, "enclosed or semi-enclosed sea" means a gulf, basin or sea surrounded by two or more States and connected to another sea or the ocean by a narrow outlet or consisting entirely or primarily of the territorial seas and exclusive economic zones of two or more coastal States. ”

“ The formula adopted in an Act of Congress organizing a Territory, is "An Act to provide a provisional government, etc., etc., etc." In course of time, no doubt, all the Territories will be admitted as States, as the territorial form of government is not provided for as a permanency by the Constitution, and is moreover anomalous in the American system. The people residing in the Territories are to a considerable extent disfranchised politically, and are not, in fact, full-fledged American citizens. ”

“ This exclusive possession of a defined territory is a characteristic feature of all civilised and normal states. It is found to be a necessary condition of the efficient exercise of governmental functions. But we cannot say that it is essential to the existence of a state. A state without a fixed territory—a nomadic tribe for example—is perfectly possible. A non-territorial society may be organised for the fulfilment of the essential functions of government, and if so, it will be a true state. ”

“ As to the territories, it is said to be all legislative power—all that any parliament ever had or ever claimed to have, and as much more as we may claim—for there can be no excess of pretension where power is absolute. No law relating to the territories, passed by congress, can, it is said, be declared by the supreme court to be inoperative, though every section of it should contravene a provision of the constitution. ”

“ It is not, therefore, the mere sight of land which constitutes a discovery, in the sense in which the practice of nations respects it, as the basis of territorial title; there must be some formal act of taking possession, which, as being an act of sovereign power, can only be performed through a commission from the sovereign. ”

“ By the constitution, as is now well settled, the United States, having rightfully acquired the territories, and being the only government which can impose laws upon them, have the entire dominion and sovereignty, national and municipal, federal and state, over all the territories, so long as they remain in a territorial condition. ”