A nation's supreme authority (sovereignty) and practical authority to administer justice over territories, things, and persons withing its boundaries. (Source: InforMEA/MMA)

Jurisdiction is an aspect of sovereignty: it refers to a state's competence under international law to regulate the conduct of natural and juridical persons. The notion of regulation includes the activity of all branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. This chapter discusses prescriptive jurisdiction over crimes, civil prescriptive jurisdiction, the separateness of the grounds of jurisdiction, and enforcement jurisdiction. (Source: J. Crawford, Brownlie's Principles of Public International Law, OUP, 2013)