Extraterritorial law enforcement in areas of limited statehood: the transnational dimension of the rule of law

This chapter examines the question of extraterritorial law enforcement in areas of limited statehood. Focusing mainly on extraterritorial law enforcement measures carried in the context of United Nations peacekeeping missions, the contribution describes how areas of limited statehood that are plagued by significant governance gaps may provoke foreign agents to assume operational control of local policing. While the legal grounds on which enforcement measures are based is often unclear, it is argued here that principles inherent to the rule of law should also apply to measures of extraterritorial policing. The analysis of norms of both international and domestic law as the legal basis for coercive action in different Peacekeeping missions shows that the growing practice of external actors undertaking tasks of law enforcement has not been accompanied by the same dynamic in advancing a legal framework that would render this practice in conformity with the rule of law.