United States Court For China

The United States Court for China was a United States district court that had extraterritorial jurisdiction over U.S. citizens in China. It existed from 1906 to 1943 and had jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, with appeals taken to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Before the establishment of the United States Court for China, U.S. citizens were tried in the U.S. Consular Courts in China. The United States Court for China was similar in structure to the British Supreme Court for China and Japan that had been established in Shanghai in 1865 and also ceased to exist in 1943 when both Britain and the United States gave up extraterritorial rights in China.

The court was located in the Shanghai International Settlement. The District had only one judge, and those on trial sometimes had to wait months for proceedings.

The Court was supposed to apply United States law in China. This led to severe difficulties because U.S. federal law did not cover many criminal offenses or civil matters (which were normally provided for by U.S. state law). Even worse, U.S. civil procedure in actions at law (i.e., most lawsuits for monetary damages) in U.S. federal courts was also normally provided for by state law from the enactment of the Conformity Act of 1872 to the promulgation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938. Although the "state" (i.e., China) in which the court sat did have its own legal system, there was never any serious consideration given to applying traditional Chinese law in the Court. After all, the entire point of writing extraterritoriality into the unequal treaties was give foreigners the ability to escape a domestic legal system that they found to be alien and backward.

The solution that was found to this conundrum was to apply Alaskan law or District of Columbia law, which were deemed to be United States law. Judge Lobingier gave detailed evidence on the workings of, and application of law by, the court and extraterritoriality in China to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1917.

Because the court was based outside of the United States, the United States Constitution did not apply; there was no right to a jury trial nor to constitutional due process.

The United States Consulate and Court were occupied by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 at the beginning of the Pacific War. The Judge and other staff were interned for 6 months before being repatriated.

On 11 January 1943, the US and China signed a Treaty Relinquishing Extraterritorial Rights. The treaty was ratified in May 1943 and came into force then.

The very last case before the court was heard in Chunking (Chongqing) starting on 14 January 1943. Boatner Carney of the Flying Tigers was prosecuted for manslaughter before Special Judge Bertrand E Johnson. Carney was convicted of unlawful killing and sentenced to two years imprisonment. He was pardoned 6 months later by President Roosevelt.