Chapter 4 – Jurisdiction Relevant Article from the United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: Article 5 1. Each State Party shall take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the offences referred to in article 4 in the following cases: (a) When the offences are committed in any territory under its jurisdiction or on board a ship or aircraft registered in that State; (b) When the alleged offender is a national of that State; (c) When the victim is a national of that State if that State considers it appropriate. 2. Each State Party shall likewise take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over such offences in cases where the alleged offender is present in any territory under its jurisdiction and it does not extradite him pursuant to article 8 to any of the States mentioned in paragraph I of this article. 3. This Convention does not exclude any criminal jurisdiction exercised in accordance with internal law. 12. The Convention requires States parties to establish competence over any alleged case of torture committed on territory under their jurisdiction, or a ship or plane under its flag Article 5 of the Convention explicitly provides for different types of jurisdiction. Article 5(1)(a) of the Convention requires States to establish competence over cases of torture committed “in any territory under its jurisdiction or on board a ship or aircraft registered in that State”. This common form of jurisdiction is also known as the territoriality and flag principle. The Committee elaborated on the scope of article 5 in its General Comment N°2 and explained that the territory under its jurisdiction includes not only the sovereign territory of the State, but also all areas over which it “partly exercises, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, de jure or de facto effective control.”95 In his 2015 report to the UN General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture also clarified the notion of “under its jurisdiction”: “the Convention (…) limit to any “territory under a State’s jurisdiction” (…) a small number of positive obligations, the implementation of which is necessarily dependent on the exercise of a sufficient measure of control over an individual, area, place or situation. In this sense, it is uncontroversial that the Convention obliges States to take certain CAT, General Comment N°2, op. cit. 1, § 16. See also CAT, J.H.A. v. Spain, UN Doc. CAT/C/41/D/323/2007 (21 November 2008), § 8.2 95 31