The
Protective Principle
The
protective principle recognizes that a sovereign can adopt a statute that
criminalizes conduct that occurs outside of its borders when that conduct
affects the sovereign itself. Under that
principle a nation can adopt laws that make it a crime to engage in an act that
obstructs the function of government or threatens its security as a state without
regard to where or by whom the act is committed.
1. In what type of conduct did the
defendant, Zehe, engage and did the court find the statute that criminalized
that conduct to be within the protective principle?
2.
In the court’s analysis is the application of the protective principle
affected by the fact that the defendant is not a citizen of the sovereign
against who he committed the crime?
Crim Juris 5