This is a strikingly creative work that upends standard legal thinking about jurisdiction in international law by grounding the analysis in the need to address what has been a legal black hole: the reality that millions of people live, sometimes for their entire lifetime, under the exclusive and effective authority of non-state territorial entities. In this book, by combining elements of private and public international law and practice, Leontiev reimagines the concept of jurisdiction to finally capture this phenomenon in international legal analysis.

René Provost, James McGill Professor of Justice Beyond the State, Faculty of Law, McGill University

This book provides a rich empirical account of the ways in which territorial non-state entities exercise legislative, judicial, and executive authority-functions that in the traditional view of international jurisdictional law are reserved for sovereign states. Building on that account, Leontiev challenges the theoretical grounding of jurisdiction in state sovereignty and offers a compelling argument for moving toward a function-driven approach.

Hannah L Buxbaum, Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law