## Facts

- Ferdinand Keyn was the master of the German steamship *Franconia*.
- The *Franconia* was passing along the coast of Great Britain and was not bound for, or stopping at, a British port.
- Less than three miles from the English shore in the English Channel, the *Franconia* collided with the British steamship *Strathclyde*.
- The collision caused the death of a passenger on the British vessel, Jessie Dorcas Young.
- The Crown indicted Keyn for manslaughter at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) on the basis that the death was caused within the coastal belt commonly described as “territorial waters.”
- Keyn was convicted, but a point of law was reserved as to whether the court had jurisdiction to try a foreigner for an offence committed on a foreign ship at that location.
- The case was referred to the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, which sat with thirteen judges and divided 7–6.

## Issues

1. Whether, without an Act of Parliament, English criminal courts had jurisdiction to try a foreign national for manslaughter arising from conduct on a foreign ship located less than three miles from the English coast.
2. Whether a claimed rule of customary international law treating the three-mile coastal belt as territorial could, by itself, enlarge English criminal jurisdiction.
3. Whether admiralty jurisdiction or earlier jurisdictional statutes already gave (and transferred to the Central Criminal Court) authority to try this offence.

## Decision

- By a 7–6 majority, the Court for Crown Cases Reserved held that the Central Criminal Court lacked jurisdiction on these facts.
- The conviction was quashed.
- The majority reasoned that, for criminal jurisdiction at common law, the “realm” did not extend beyond the low-water mark, and the prosecution identified no statute that extended English criminal law to a foreigner on a foreign ship in the three-mile belt.
- The majority further reasoned that even if international practice supported coastal state control within three miles, courts could not treat that external rule as a change to domestic criminal jurisdiction without parliamentary enactment.
- Reading the admiralty and jurisdictional statutes as a whole, the majority concluded they transferred whatever jurisdiction the admiralty historically possessed, but did not add new authority to try foreigners on foreign ships in the waters at issue.

## Legal Principles

- Absent clear statutory authority, English criminal jurisdiction did not extend seaward beyond the low-water mark to reach offences committed by foreigners on foreign ships, even when the ship was within three miles of the English coast.
- Rules described as customary international law do not, by themselves, expand domestic criminal jurisdiction where doing so would effectively create new criminal liability or new criminal forum authority; legislative action is required.
- Treaties, established state practice, and government assent may guide what international law requires between states, but domestic courts cannot convert contested or developing international rules into new bases of criminal jurisdiction without Parliament.
- Admiralty-related statutes that shifted maritime criminal trials into common law criminal courts were construed as carrying over existing maritime jurisdiction rather than enlarging it to cover this category of defendant and vessel.
- A substantial minority would have upheld jurisdiction (including by treating the three-mile belt as part of national territory for these purposes), but the majority view controlled and set aside the conviction.

## Conclusion

*Regina v. Keyn* held that, without an Act of Parliament, English courts could not try a German captain for manslaughter arising from a collision caused by his German ship less than three miles off the English coast, because English criminal jurisdiction at common law did not extend beyond the low-water mark and international law assertions about the three-mile belt could not alone supply domestic criminal jurisdiction.


Regina v. Keyn, 2 Law Reports (Exchequer Division) 63 (1876)