## Facts

- James Anderson, an American citizen, voluntarily served as a crew member on a British merchant vessel.
- The vessel was located within French territory at the time of the alleged offense—reported as a tidal river leading to the port of Bordeaux, well upriver and close to the French shore.
- While the ship was in that French internal-water location, Anderson committed an act alleged to amount to manslaughter of another person on board.
- The conduct was potentially punishable under multiple legal systems: French law (because the ship was in French territory), American law (because Anderson was a U.S. national), and British law (because the ship was British and operated under the British flag).
- Anderson was charged with manslaughter in England, tried in the Central Criminal Court, and convicted.
- A question of law was reserved for the Court for Crown Cases Reserved on whether the Central Criminal Court had jurisdiction, given the place of the offense and Anderson’s nationality.

## Issues

1. Whether, independent of statute, English criminal courts have jurisdiction to try a foreign (American) seaman for manslaughter committed on board a British merchant vessel while the vessel is within the internal waters of a foreign state (France).
2. Whether the fact that the offense occurred within French territorial sovereignty prevents English prosecution based on the British flag of the vessel.

## Decision

- The Court for Crown Cases Reserved held that the Central Criminal Court had jurisdiction to try the case.
- The court affirmed that English criminal jurisdiction applied at common law to an offense committed on a British ship by a crew member, even when the ship was within a foreign port or internal waters.
- The conviction was upheld; the existence of French territorial jurisdiction did not negate English jurisdiction based on the British character of the vessel.

## Legal Principles

- A British-flag merchant vessel is treated, as to its master and crew and their conduct on board, as under the protection and authority of British law, even when physically located within a foreign state’s internal waters.
- English criminal jurisdiction over offenses by crew on a British ship may exist at common law without needing a specific statute extending jurisdiction to the particular foreign-water location.
- The coastal state’s territorial authority and the flag state’s authority over shipboard offenses can exist at the same time; the availability of French jurisdiction did not bar an English trial once the accused was before the English court.
- For jurisdictional purposes in this setting, it was not decisive that the accused was not a British subject; service as a crew member on a British vessel supplied a sufficient connection for English courts to apply English criminal law to shipboard conduct.
- The Central Criminal Court could exercise jurisdiction coextensive with Admiralty jurisdiction for offenses committed on British ships, supporting trial in England for serious shipboard crimes.

## Conclusion

R. v. Anderson upheld English jurisdiction to prosecute an American seaman for manslaughter committed on a British merchant vessel while it lay within French internal waters, reasoning that, at common law, shipboard offenses by crew on a British-flag vessel remain triable in England even though the coastal state also has territorial authority.


R. v. Anderson, 11 Cox C.C. 198 (1868)