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So here’s the question: let’s say you hop on a plane from New York to Amsterdam
then transfer onto a plane to Cape Town, South Africa.
Upon arrival in Amsterdam, passengers just pop out into the terminal and then reboard
the next plane.
You never would have gone through passport control, so which country were you in during
your connection?
The simple answer is the Netherlands, but you weren’t in the same Netherlands as people
in downtown Amsterdam.
The international zone of airports is part of the country in which it is physically located,
more or less.
It almost operates as a separate country because a border control agent would say you weren’t
in the Netherlands but a police officer would say you were.
You were in the Netherlands in a legal sense but not in an immigration sense.
This can create complications.
Chinese citizens, for example, don’t need a visa to transfer from one flight to another
through Amsterdam Schiphol Airport but they do need a visa to enter the Netherlands.
If a Chinese citizen without a visa commits a crime in Amsterdam Airport that crime must
be tried Dutch court, but if they don’t have a visa the Chinese offender can’t legally
enter the Netherlands.
The country therefore has the rather amazing ability to create a floating international
zone around the Chinese Citizen—no matter where they go, they are not in the Netherlands
even if they are walking down the streets of Amsterdam.
They will never have gone through passport control or had their passport stamped but
they’ll still be in the Netherlands physically.
Of course, though, they’ll always be in the captivity of police officers.
The question of what country you’re in in airports can get a little more complicated
thanks to the USA.
The US operates a unique system of customs pre-clearance facilities at a number of airports
and some train stations and ports around the world.
Essentially, when flying from Dublin to New York, for example, you clear US customs in
Dublin so that once you arrive in New York you can immediately walk strait out of the
airport with no further checks just like a domestic traveller.
So, once you pass through US customs in Ireland you’re in the US in an immigration-sense,
but here’s where it gets tricky.
You’re in the US, but you’re not on US soil.
Irish laws still apply past US customs in Dublin airport.
Of course, there are exceptions.
The US border agents working the facility are, on the other hand, subject to US laws
despite being in Ireland.
They are essentially treated like diplomats.
Crime is pretty rare in airports so this doesn’t normally cause problems, but consider this.
There’s a pre-clearance facility in Abu Dhabi Airport in the United Arab Emirates….
where homosexuality is illegal and can be punished with fines, prison time, or worse.
That means that if you got a little frisky past US customs in Abu Dhabi Airport, you
could technically be arrested while in the US for being gay.
Of course this would never happen because it would create a diplomatic incident of monumental
proportions, but the point is that it could happen.
Speaking of diplomacy, more jurisdictional fuzziness comes with the United Nations headquarters
in New York.
The territory this building is on is technically international territory—not part of the
US.
In general US laws apply, but the UN can, at their own discretion make their own laws
that trump US law.
For example, the UN headquarters in New York is allowed to issue stamps and run their own
postal service for its employees—something that would be illegal in the US.
There are more ways to visit countries without going through immigration.
Back in the 40’s, Russia and Estonia re-drew their border and ended up making a bit of
a peninsula of Russia jutting out into Estonia between the towns of Lutepää and Sesniki.
As a part of the Soviet Union, it wasn’t a problem for Estonia to build the road between
the two villages through the peninsula since the borders were rather porous.
When the Soviet Union fell, though, the border became one of the most guarded in the world
and therefore Sesniki was cut off from the rest of Estonia.
So, Russia decided to allow cars to drive the short route with no border controls, no
paperwork, nothing as long as they don’t stop.
Border agents watch cameras at both ends to make sure that any car that goes in one end
comes out the other and sends in agents if a car takes too long, but this road allows
individuals to visit one of the most guarded countries on earth without a visa or even
a passport.
Despite the US’ affinity for large walls, secure borders, and heavily armed agents,
you can legally visit the US without passing through border controls or immigration.
As the longest international border in the world, there are actually quite a few unguarded
border crossings on the US-Canada border, but when crossing one you are still required
to self-report to the nearest border patrol station, with one exception.
Hyder, Alaska has the unique distinction of being the only town in the southern half of
Alaska’s panhandle to be connected to the outside world by road.
That is, though, because it in directly across the border from Canada.
Given that, the only roads into Hyder come from Canada and you can’t drive anywhere
in the United States from Hyder.
There are therefore no US border controls when passing into Hyder and there’s no requirement
to self-report to a border patrol station.
There is, however, a Canadian border control station when passing back into Canada from
Hyder meaning you could accidentally cross into the US without a passport and get stuck.
Hyder is essentially a Canadian town stuck in Alaska.
The residents unofficially use the timezone of British Columbia rather than Alaska, use
Canadian dollars, have Canadian phone numbers, and use Canadian fire and ambulance services.
Perhaps most interesting, however, is that you need a passport to travel to the United
States from Hyder.
While it doesn't have an airport, it does have a seaplane base with regularly scheduled
commercial flights to Ketchikan, Alaska.
Even though this flight is fully within the same country and state, upon arrival in Ketchikan
all passengers are sent through US customs.
It makes sense—the reason Hyder doesn’t have US customs in is because there’s no
way to get out to the rest of the US—but this flight is the only time that you need
a passport to travel from one part of the US to another.
Now for the grandaddy of “which country am I in,” questions.
Which country are you in while in a plane.
Let’s say you’re flying in an Irish registered airplane from Paris over Canada to New York.
Are you in Ireland, France, Canada, or the United States?
This gets super complicated.
According to immigration law, you’re not in any country, just like in an International
Airport even though you are physically in the sovereign territory of Canada.
Each country sets its own upper limit to its sovereignty above earth, but all countries
have their limit above the altitude at which planes fly.
From a legal view, however, within that plane you could be in Ireland, France, Canada, and
the United States all at once.
Jurisdiction for crimes committed in the air gets really fuzzy.
Depending on their own laws, each country could prosecute the same crime.
Most of the time the laws that apply are those of the aircraft’s country of registration—Ireland
in this case—but assuming the plane continued to its final destination in the US, the arresting
officers for a crime would be US police and therefore, unless another country claimed
jurisdiction, the trial would take plane in the US under US law since the plane landed
in the US.
However, Canada could also claim jurisdiction.
In 1988 Pan Am flight 103 was brought down by terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Of course jurisdiction was a huge issue especially considering the suspects were Libyan, but
in the end the trial was held in a Scottish court under Scot law.
Since it was overflying Scotland and therefore in Scottish territory when the plane was brought
down, they got jurisdiction, however, for complicated diplomatic reasons relating the
extradition of the suspects, the trial was actually held in an old US Air Force Base
in the Netherlands that was temporarily ceded over to Scotland.
The rather disappointing answer to which country you’re in when flying is that it depends.
Countries will just claim or ignore their jurisdiction depending on convenience.
In the end, the only way to find out might just be to hop on a flight and commit a crime.
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