If a stateless person commits a crime in Bir Tawil (land that belongs to no country), which country will regulate the punishment?

Question

Let's imagine a guy Bob.

• Bob has no citizenship (stateless).
• Bob ended up on a land that doesn't belong to any country (Bir Tawil).
• Bob commited a particular crime (let's say, he murdered another stateless person) in Bir Tawil.
• The world beyond Bir Tawil knows about this crime, and now Bob is considered a murderer.
• Bob is still situated in Bir Tawil.

P.S. This is a theoretical question, thus it doesn't matter how Bob ended up in Bir Tawil, or why he killed another stateless person, etc.

Here are my questions:

1. Can Bob be arrested by Egyptian, Sudanese, or any other countries' police/special forces, while he resides in Bir Tawil?
2. Can Bob be arrested by Egyptian, Sudanese, or any other countries' police/special forces, while he resides in one of recognized countries (Egypt, Sudan, or any other)?
3. Which country takes the responsibility of bringing Bob to the court and sentencing him to punishment?

Answer 1

Many countries have ratified or at least signed the statute of the International Criminal Court, also called the Rome Statute. It defines Universal Jurisdiction for a set of severe crimes. Suspects of any such crime can be charged in any country, whereas normally a court only acts on crimes done within its jurisdiction or by a citizen of its own country (expecting a request for extradition otherwise).

There are some requirements for this to become a problem for Bob: He needs to be in a country that has put the Rome Statute into law, so he can be arrested. These countries won't send someone to arrest him in Bir Tawil. And he must have committed a crime of the Universal Jurisdiction, namely Genocide, attacks on shipping or air traffic, dangerous acts involving radioactive substances, trafficking with humans or drugs, and a bunch of others. Murder alone is not normally an universal crime, as it is normally directed at a certain person for a certain reason, and not an act of violence against random people.

Answer 2

Bir Tawil has no settled population, but members of the Ababda and Bishari tribes pass through the region. Both are nomadic Sunni Muslim people with very traditional worldviews. Their de facto control of the region makes them the arbiters of justice there.

Rather than pursuing this murder through the courts of a nearby country (each of which is likely to ignore the murder), as a practical matter, the people present in Bir Tawil are very likely to treat the matter as one governed by Sunni Islamic law (which they view as universal in application) and to take justice into their own hands in accordance with the means prescribed by Islamic law (i.e. tribal leaders are likely to capture and behead him after a summary Islamic law proceeding).

In the alternative, to the extent that our stateless person's victim has come within the protection of a local clan, that clan may seek vengeance upon the murderer in order to protect the clan's honor.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, this is an impractically humongous research task, since it involves researching the legal systems of hundreds of jurisdictions, many of which are very difficult to research (for example, Sudan, also Western Sahara). As a start, we can conclude that under US law, Bob cannot be arrested, tried or punished. Extraterritorial jurisdiction under US law is limited to statutorily-specified circumstances. There is a term "special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States" which governs situations where he US has jurisdiction outside of the US – for example on a guano-containing rock that the president has declared to be "pertaining to the US" (not the case in Bir Tawil). Under 18 USC 1116, if you murder an internationally protected person and if Bob the murder is then found in the US, he could be prosecuted. Then it matters who he murdered. If he murdered the Speaker of the US House, he could be prosecuted. If he murdered Ted, another stateless person, then he cannot be arrested etc. under US law (Ted is not an internationally protected person). An important limit on such prosecutions is that the criminal act be recognized by the community of nations as of universal concern, thus smoking marijuana or drinking alcohol would not be a trigger crime.

It is possible that the law of Egypt or of Sudan addresses the matter with respect to the victim, e.g if the victim was from Egypt or Sudan (from, not necessarily a citizen) perhaps Egyptian / Sudanese law already provides for prosecution. Or, especially in the case of a crime of universal concern, perhaps under the law of Norway or Brunei, there could be extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Answer 4

Make a list of all countries in alphabetical order, then check for each country if according to their laws they’d want to prosecute this crime. If you find one or more countries where the answer is “yes”, those countries could prosecute.

Many countries would say “no prosecution” if the crime didn’t happen in that country. Some countries might. Other countries might have a different set of rules.