How much US land is controlled by foreign states?

February 11, 2009 8:18 AM

How much US land does not fall under the jurisdiction of US laws? Diplomatic missions such as embassies and consulates enjoy extraterritoriality, as do military bases. Is there any kind of accounting of how much land those places take up?

I understand that embassies and the like aren't "foreign land" in the same sense that actual foreign land is, and that the relationship between the jurisdiction of host and guest states is often fuzzy. For the sake of this question, let's pretend it's not.

Followup: How much non-US land falls under the jurisdiction of US laws? Guantanamo, et al.

posted by Plutor to law & government (12 comments total)

2.3% of the mainland US (225,410km^2) is designated Indian reservation and thus not entirely under the jurisdiction of US laws. Any embassy/consulate land is likely to not even compare. This is all not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan.
posted by The White Hat at 8:30 AM on February 11

This is a little confusing, because I think you are regarding as distinct two aspects of the same question.

I take it the question is, how many square miles of land are there that lie outside U.S. territory, but remain subject to one degree or another to U.S. legal authority and physical control? Examples being embassies, military bases, Guantanama Bay Naval Base, etc.

A particular caution about your follow-up: some U.S. laws follow U.S. citizens everywhere, and some U.S. laws apply to everyone everywhere, purportedly, so the answer to your follow up is really "most of the earth's land and water, to one degree or another."
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 8:33 AM on February 11

Clyde Mnestra, I think you have it backwards. The poster wants to know how much land lies inside the borders of the United States but is considered part of another country (e.g., the Canadian embassy in DC).
posted by jedicus at 8:39 AM on February 11

Clyde, the question is the other way around: How many square miles of land are there that lie inside U.S. territory, but remain subject to one degree or another to foreign legal authority and physical control? The way you phrased it is my followup.
posted by Plutor at 8:43 AM on February 11

Clyde, I think the OP is asking how much square mileage of US soil is technically under the control and legal protection of foreign governments (i.e. technically not part of the US at all), not how much of the world is under some form of US influence and law.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:44 AM on February 11

My apologies -- I was confused by the reference to military bases, of which there are none on U.S. soil. So then I guess the clarifying question is whether you are getting at foreign-ness, which would exclude not only reservations but also international organizations like the UN, or whether what matters is some inviolability.

My guess is that this consists solely of foreign embassies, foreign consulates, and international organizations, at most.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 8:51 AM on February 11

I'm not sure anyone keeps track of this. The UN is bigger than most embassies yet its campus on the East River is only seventeen acres. As the United States includes 3.79 million square miles, the amount of extraterritorial land within US borders probably isn't even worth expressing as a percentage. All of the embassies in Washington, DC would probably fit within a single square mile, as most of them consist of a single building, if that.

Back of the napkin guess? There are less than 10 square miles of extraterritorial land within US borders. Anyone with real numbers is welcome to correct me, but I'd be shocked if it was even that high.

As to your second question, that's considerably higher. The US has upwards of 700 military bases scattered across 156 countries. These could range in size from a few acres to dozens of square miles depending on where they are. But the state of the law on US military bases is rather murky, e.g. look at the ruckus that has arisen over Guantanamo. Still, I'd be surprised if there were less than 1000 square miles under some form of US control outside its territorial borders.
posted by valkyryn at 8:52 AM on February 11

The UN headquarters in New York sits on 17 acres. There are roughly 190 foreign embassies [pdf] and roughly 1200 foreign consulates [pdf]. Assuming all of the consular offices enjoy extraterritorial status and that the embassies and consular offices occupy an average of 1 acre apiece, that amounts to about 1400 acres all told (2.18 square miles). That's just an estimated upper bound, though.

I don't think there are any foreign military bases inside US territory.

As to your follow up: The size of US embassies and consular offices abroad is going to be dwarfed by the over 700 foreign military bases. A common figure for the total area of US foreign military bases is 46,566 square miles. For comparison, the new embassy in Iraq sits on 104 acres (.16 sq mi), and it's by far the largest in the world.
posted by jedicus at 9:01 AM on February 11

(Sidenote: What to do about vacant and abandoned embassies in Washington, DC)
posted by milkrate at 9:22 AM on February 11

As to the followup:

The US has jurisdiction, under its laws, over all the territory in its control. Which exact laws apply is a technical, internal matter. Whether other countries recognize that is up to them. "International" law is really just voluntary agreements between countries that are honored for practical reasons. Some countries claim to have jurisdiction to try cases of genocide committed by anyone against anyone anywhere. The extend to which these claims have force is the extent to which the countries can enforce them or get other countries to cooperate.

Federal courts in the US have limited jurisdiction, both in terms of geography and subject matter. For instance, Congress could pass a law saying that no courts have jurisdiction to hear cases alleging violations of a particular law. (Cases involving violations of the Constitution can always be heard, however.) In Rasul v. Bush the hard question was whether any courts have jurisdiction over Guantanamo, not necessarily whether US law applied. The decision was that even non-citizens in US-controlled territory could bring, at least, constitutional claims. The case was to be heard in the DC Circuit, where the President is located. (Generally, claims can be brought where the defendant is located, or where the incident occurred. If no federal courts have geographic jurisdiction over Guantanamo that left only DC.)

If you want to see how weird this can all get, check out Judgment in Berlin, which is a book about a case tried in Germany by the United States in the United States Court for Berlin. Complicated politics behind that. The judge there ruled that the defendants were entitled to the US constitutional guarantee of a trial by jury, even though he otherwise applied German law. (There are in fact many, many instances of courts of one country applying and enforcing the laws of another, or mixes of foreign law and their own. Generally the host court has its own meta-laws which will say whose laws to apply in different circumstances.)
posted by yesno at 9:25 AM on February 11

All of the embassies in Washington, DC would probably fit within a single square mile, as most of them consist of a single building, if that.

Actually, very few missions consist of just a single building. The Embassy itself perhaps, but then there are the residences, Chanceries, Consulates, and other support buildings all of which are part of the foreign mission. Some nations have most of their buildings concentrated on a compound (like Russia, Germany, and the UK). Others have buildings and parts of buildings scattered all over town (like Mexico or China). Most of these out-buildings fall under the same rules.
posted by Pollomacho at 9:55 AM on February 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Pollomacho, even if you include all of that, there's still no way there's more than one square mile, two at the absolute outside, of extraterritorial land in DC. All 150-odd national missions could get four acres each and still be under a square mile.
posted by valkyryn at 11:15 AM on February 11