Which Country Are International Airports In? | Wendover Productions

0:00This Wendover Productions video was made possible by Hover. Get 10% off your custom domain or email from Hover with the code Wendover at checkout. So here's the question. Let's see you hop on a plane from New York to Amsterdam, then transfer onto a plane to Cape Town, South Africa. Upon arrival in Amsterdam, passengers just pop out into the terminal and then re-bore the next plane. You never would have gone through passport control, so which country were you in during your connection? The simple answer is the Netherlands, but you weren't in the same Netherlands as people in downtown Amsterdam. The international zone of airports is part of the country in which it is physically located more or less. It almost operates as a separate country because a border control agent would say you weren't in the Netherlands, but a police officer would say you were. You were in the Netherlands in a legal sense, but not in an immigration sense. This can create complications. Chinese citizens, for example, don't need a visa to transfer from one flight to another through Amsterdam's Skibble Airport, but they do need a visa to enter the Netherlands.

1:02If a Chinese citizen without a visa commits a crime in Amsterdam Airport, that crime must be tried in a Dutch court. But if they don't have a visa, the Chinese offender can't legally enter the Netherlands. The country therefore has the rather amazing ability to create a floating international zone around the Chinese citizen. No matter where they go, they are not in the Netherlands, even if they are walking down the streets of Amsterdam. They will never have gone through passport control or had their passport stamped, but they'll still be in the Netherlands physically. Of course though, they'll always be in the captivity of police officers. The question of which country you're in in airports can get a little more complicated, thanks to the USA. The US operates a unique system of customs pre-clearance facilities at a number of airports and some train stations and ports around the world. Essentially, when flying from Dublin to New York, for example, you clear US customs in Dublin so that once you arrive in New York, you can immediately walk straight out of the airport with no further checks, just like a domestic traveler.

2:05So, once you pass through US customs in Ireland, you're in the US in an immigration sense, but here's where it gets tricky. You're in the US, but you're not on US soil. Irish laws still apply past US customs in Dublin Airport. Of course, there are exceptions. The US border agent working the facility are, on the other hand, subject to US laws despite being in Ireland. They are essentially treated like diplomats. Crime is pretty rare in airports so this doesn't normally cause problems, but consider this. There's a pre-clearance facility in Abu Dhabi Airport in the United Arab Emirates, where homosexuality is illegal and can be punished with fines, prison time, or worse. That means that if you got a little frisky past US customs in Abu Dhabi Airport, you could technically be arrested while in the US for being gay. Of course, this would never happen because it would create a diplomatic incident of monumental proportions, but the point is that it could happen. Speaking of diplomacy, more jurisdictional fuzziness comes with the United Nations headquarters

3:09in New York. The territory this building is on is technically international territory, not part of the US. In general, US laws apply, but the UN can, at their own discretion, make their own laws that trump US law. For example, the UN headquarters in New York is allowed to issue stamps and run their own postal service for its employees, something that would be illegal in the US. There are more ways to visit countries without going through immigration. Back in the 40s, Russia and Estonia re-drew their border and ended up making a bit of a peninsula of Russia jutting out into Estonia between the towns of Lutepa and Sessniki. As part of the Soviet Union, it wasn't a problem for Estonia to build the road between the two villages through the peninsula since the borders were rather porous. When the Soviet Union fell, though, the border became one of the most guarded in the world and therefore Sessniki was cut off from the rest of Estonia. So, Russia decided to allow cars to drive the short route with no border controls, no

4:10paperwork, nothing as long as they don't stop. Border agents watch cameras at both ends to make sure that any car that goes in one end comes out the other and sends an agent if a car takes too long. But this road allows individuals to visit one of the most guarded countries on Earth without a visa or even a passport. Despite the US's affinity for large walls, secure borders, and heavily armed agents, you can legally visit the US without passing through border controls or immigration. As the longest international border in the world, there are actually quite a few unguarded border crossings on the US-Canada border, but when crossing one, you are still required to self-report to the nearest border patrol station with one exception. Hyder, Alaska has the unique distinction of being the only town in the southern half of Alaska's Panhandle to be connected to the outside world by road. That is, though, because it is directly across the border from Canada. Given that, the only roads into Hyder come from Canada and you can't drive anywhere

5:12in the United States from Hyder. There are therefore no US border controls when passing into Hyder and there's no requirement to self-report to a border patrol station. There is, however, a Canadian border control station when passing back into Canada from Hyder, meaning you could accidentally cross into the US without a passport and then get stuck. Hyder is essentially a Canadian town stuck in Alaska. The residents unofficially use the time zone of British Columbia rather than Alaska, use Canadian dollars, have Canadian phone numbers, and use Canadian fire and ambulance services. Perhaps most interesting, however, is that you need a passport to travel to the United States from Hyder. While it doesn't have an airport, it does have a sea plane base with regularly scheduled commercial flights to Ketchikan, Alaska. Even though this flight is fully within the same country and state upon arrival in Ketchikan, all passengers are sent through US customs. It makes sense. The reason Hyder doesn't have US customs is because there's no way to get out to the

6:16rest of the US, but this flight is the only time that you need a passport to travel from one part of the US to another. Now for the granddaddy of which country MIN questions. Which country are you in while in a plane? Let's say you're flying on an Irish registered airplane from Paris over Canada to New York. Are you in Ireland, France, Canada, or the United States? This gets super complicated. According to immigration law, you are not in any country, just like in an international airport, even though you are physically in the sovereign territory of Canada. Each country sets its own upper limit to its sovereignty above Earth, but all countries have their limit above the altitude at which planes fly. From a legal view, however, within that plane you could be in Ireland, France, Canada, and the United States all at once. Jurisdiction for crimes committed in the air gets really fuzzy. Depending on their own laws, each country could prosecute the same crime. Most of the time, the laws that apply are those of the aircraft's country of registration,

7:18Ireland in this case. But assuming the plane continued to its final destination in the US, the arresting officers for a crime would be US police, and therefore, unless another country claimed jurisdiction, the trial would take place in the US under US law since the plane landed in the US. However, Canada could also claim jurisdiction. In 1998, Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by terrorists over Lockerby Scotland. Of course, jurisdiction was a huge issue, especially considering the suspects were Libyan, but in the end, the trial was held in a Scottish court under Scott Law. Since it was overflying Scotland and therefore in Scottish territory when the plane was brought down, they got jurisdiction. However, for complicated diplomatic reasons relating to the extradition of the suspects, the trial was actually held in an old US Air Force Base in the Netherlands that was temporarily seated over to Scotland. The rather disappointing answer to which country you're in when flying is that it depends.

8:19Countries will just claim or ignore their jurisdiction depending on convenience. In the end, the only way to find out might just be to hop on a flight and commit a crime. This video was made possible by Hover. Hover is by far the easiest, best, and often the least expensive way to buy your custom domain or email. There's just so much to love about them. When you call customer support, this happens. They just pick up and answer your question. No holding, no phone trees, it's that simple. While I bought plenty of domains from Hover, what I recently started to use Hover for is email. Using a custom domain such as Wendover Dot Productions, you can add an email for as low as $5 per year, which gives you a superbly professional and unique web presence. I just set up a new personal email through Hover, Sam at Wendover Dot Productions, which you can feel free to email me at, especially with questions about Hover, and I'll do my

9:20best to respond. You can buy your custom domain and email from Hover with 10% off by going to Hover.com slash Wendover. Hover has been a wonderful supporter of Wendover Productions and they truly do run a fantastic service. So please go at least check them out and if you decide to buy, once again, go to Hover.com slash Wendover and use the code Wendover for 10% off. If you haven't already, please go check out my new podcast called Showmakers where we have guests like Hank Green, Smart Every Day, Vsauce 3, and more. Go my last video here and subscribe to this channel to receive all my future videos right when they come out. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in two weeks for another Wendover Productions video.