Final Word from Tuesday, December 11, 2018

The U.S. won the extradition battle earlier this year over suspected hacker Yevgeny Nikulin for obvious reasons. Russia isn't an ally, and it had very little leverage over the Czechs. What was Vladimir Putin going to do, hack the Czech presidential elections? The principles in the case of Meng Wanzhou of Huawei are similar, but the magnitude is of an entirely different order. Meng, like Nikulin, is charged with violating U.S. laws without being physically present in the U.S. The U.S. is seeking to apply extraterritorial jurisdiction, and Canada must decide whether to recognize it. Things can go one of two ways. Either Canada backs down and decides against extraditing Meng, in which case it deals a huge blow to the principle of U.S. global jurisdiction. Or Canada follows through, in which case China starts expanding its own use of extraterritorial jurisdiction. Either way, things could be much different if the Czechs ever arrest a Chinese hacker on a U.S. warrant. [ Czech Republic extraterritoriality Miloš Zeman Robert Pelikán United States ]