Cybercrime and Jurisdiction

Cybercrime is remarkably varied and widespread, and financial losses range from a few hundred dollars being extorted to multi-million dollar cyberfraud cases. Increasingly, cybercrime also involves the risk of terrorist attacks bringing down a major part of the Internet. Countries are discovering that it may be impossible for them to prosecute cybercriminals. Cybercrimes, unlike ordinary crimes, are transnational in nature and it is often difficult to say just where they take place. This causes legal problems, since jurisdiction is usually still confined to the place where the crime was committed. A related issue is to what extent the police can investigate cybercrimes across borders, through the Internet: do they infringe the sovereignty of other countries? This book surveys how these issues in cybercrime jurisdiction are dealt with by countries around the world, including the US, Japan, Korea, India, Brazil, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Italy,Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and the UK. A score of experts assess how well the laws of their countries and the Cybercrime Convention deal with transnational cybercrime, and how jurisdiction conflicts should be resolved. With this in-depth survey of views and practices of cybercrime jurisdiction, the authors hope to contribute to a more concerted international effort towards effectively fighting cybercrime. The book is therefore highly recommended to policy-makers, members of the judiciary, academics and practitioners. Bert-Jaap Koops is Professor of Regulation & Technology at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) of Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Susan W. Brenner is NCR Distinguished Professor of Law & Technology, University of Dayton School of Law, Ohio, US.