Enforcing Criminal Jurisdiction in the Clouds and International Law’s Enduring Commitment to Territoriality

Abstract

This chapter addresses how cross-border data storage by way of Cloud Computing and related criminal activities have become a major problem for criminal justice authorities. Since these authorities remain beholden to the territoriality principle and cannot search unilaterally for data located within another state’s territory, the dramatic growth in trans-border criminality means that this territorial limitation now risks undermining the extent to which individual states are able to satisfy their positive obligation to maintain the integrity of their criminal justice systems and to uphold the rule of law more generally. The chapter then considers the key proposals which have been advanced by the Cybercrime Committee in order to illustrate the ways in which the Committee has sought to address the challenges of unilateral trans-border activity in connection with the conduct of criminal investigations and to consider their viability from an international legal perspective, insofar as jurisdictional considerations are engaged.