Colonialism Without Colonies: On the Extraterritorial Jurisprudence of the U.S. Court for China

The US Court for China was created by Congress in 1906, and it was not abolished until 1943. The Shanghai-based court had extraterritorial jurisdiction over all American citizens within its district, known as the District of China for jurisdictional purposes. The court is fascinating in its own right, and it produced what one observer has described as a system of jurisdiction that was more complete than that of any body extraterritorial law. Here, Ruskola elaborates the court's jurisprudence.

He focuses on some of the conflicts-of-law problems the court had to face. Also, he describes the law applied by the court, which consisted of a melange of colonial common law as it existed prior to American independence, general congressional acts, the municipal code of the District of Columbia, and the code of the Territory of Alaska.