316 A Positive Century (1815–1914)unfortunate term, as it might be thought to imply some sort of control by
one country over territory located in another. Th is was not so. “Extraterri-
toriality” referred to certain important privileges held by foreign nationals,
conferred by way of bilateral treaties. Th e principal privilege consisted of
the foreigners’ being exempted from the legal pro cesses of the host country,
in favor of trial by offi cials of their home states instead. In principle, the
foreigners remained subject to the substantive law of the host country, but
not to its trial procedures. Sometimes the adjudication was conducted by
consular offi cials of the home state, so that the expression “consular juris-
diction” came into common use. In Egypt, there were “mixed courts” with
both Egyptian and Western personnel— but with the Western interest
predominating.
Extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction were not inventions of the
nineteenth century. Th ey had roots in the Middle Ages, when Eu ro pe ans
established resident communities in the various major trading cities of the
Byzantine and Muslim worlds. Th ese entailed the use, within these commu-
nities, of the law of the traders’ home states, rather than of the place in which
the settlement was located. Th e treaties granting extraterritorial privileges
in the Ottoman Empire were known as capitulations. Th e fi rst of these were
granted to the cities of Ragusa and Genoa around 1400. Th e fi rst one with a
major power was concluded in 1536, as part of the military alliance of that
year between France and the Ottoman Empire. Renewals of these agree-
ments were continually required, as they applied only during the lives of the
rulers concluding them. Finally, in 1740, France and the Ottoman Empire
concluded a capitulation of indefi nite duration, which continued in force
into the twentieth century.
Th ese arrangements proved readily extendable to the Far East. Th e pro-
cess began as early as 1727, when a treaty between China and Rus sia pro-
vided that disputes between members of Rus sian trading expeditions to
China would be dealt with by Rus sian offi cials. Th e pace picked up aft er the
conclusion of the “Opium War” between Britain and China in 1842. Th e
Treaty of Nanjing, which concluded the hostilities, did not provide for extra-
territoriality privileges. But they appeared in a set of resolutions promul-
gated soon aft erward. Th e fi rst appearances of extraterritoriality in treaty
texts occurred in 1844, in agreements that China concluded with the United
States and France, followed by one with Sweden three years later. Agree-