Final Word from Wednesday, September 12, 2018

A key issue in the extradition of suspected Russian hacker Yevgeny Nikulin was whether the Czech Republic should continue to recognize the right of the United States to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction. Nikulin was charged with violating U.S. laws without having committed the acts in either the USA or the CR. As Europe's trade war with Donald Trump intensifies, making extraterritorial jurisdiction reciprocal becomes an issue. If the U.S can exercise it, why can't Europe? Lina Khan argues in a scholarly article that a presumption of predatory behavior should apply to online platforms. As such, it could be argued that the censorship by Facebook of posts and accounts of Czech citizens is a violation of the Czech Bill of Rights and of Czech antitrust law. If the CR were intent on defending its citizens' rights, it could charge Mark Zuckerberg with local crimes and seek to have him extradited on similar extraterritorial grounds to those used by the U.S. in the Nikulin case. [ Czech Republic predation criminal ]