The New International Encyclopædia/Extraterritoriality

EXTRATERRITORIALITY. A principle of international law by which certain classes of persons residing in a foreign country are exempted from its jurisdiction. This immunity extends to sovereigns passing through a foreign country, to diplomatic agents, to a man-of-war in a foreign port, and the like: it finds its reason in the spirit of international comity. and it is based on the legal fiction that such privileged persons carry with them the laws of their own country, the residence of an ambassador or the deck of a man-of-war being regarded as a part .il of the country whose flag they fly. See TERRITORIALITY.