The Extraterritorial Mediterranean: Jurisdiction and Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century

FAIN: FEL-282725-22

Jessica Maya Marglin
University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA 90089-0012)

Research and writing leading to a book on the legal history of citizenship and sovereignty in the Middle East, particularly in North Africa, in the 18th-19th century.  

The legal histories of citizenship and sovereignty have generally been told as a European story—a dimension of domestic and international law originating in the West. But the view from the Middle East suggests that the evolution of both territorial sovereignty and citizenship were closely bound up with the rise of extraterritoriality, which allowed foreigners in the Islamic world to remain under the jurisdiction of their consulates for most legal matters. The Extraterritorial Mediterranean offers the first trans-regional history of extraterritoriality in the nineteenth century Middle East and North Africa. I argue that key concepts of modern law—including sovereignty, territorialism, and citizenship—were elaborated in the context of negotiations over extraterritoriality among European and Middle Eastern diplomats, government officials, and ordinary individuals. These modern legal forms were not invented in Europe and then exported abroad, but co-constructed across the Mediterranean.