This is a spin-off of the thread about havens.

Extraterritoriality: what is it?

According to canon materials, it means that certain individuals are immune to national jurisdiction, as opposed to the jurisdiction of their sponsoring corporation. It also means that the marked, differentiable property of a corporation (of at least AA status) is not in the jurisdiction of the nation including it.

In the real world, historically, there are two basic models that resemble this. The first is diplomatic immunity, which is a special case that clearly does not apply here (there's no supply of credentials, no revocation procedure or anything similar) and the second case relates to the demands of international corporations (and their sponsoring governments) in the imperial age. At the time they were seen (as in the case of China and various foreign governments) as a national humiliation, and wars erupted because of them (such as the Opium Wars).

This second case is a lot closer to what is being presented in canon.

So the question this raises is: why would nations worldwide submit to such a humiliation? Especially since according to canon, quite a few simply ignore it, without apparent catastrophes following. Both Tirs, as well as Manchuria are on that list. As presented, none of this makes a whole lot of sense. I could see a few really broken or small jurisdictions being bullied into accepting the state of affairs, but I can't really see a reconsolidated UCAS, CAS and others accepting it without someone holding a gun to their heads.

So what is more plausible?

Let's start by understanding the scope of the result, the obstacles, and what similar cases exist today.

What we are talking about is a removal of power and autonomy from governments. Governments are not in the business of giving those up, and in fact regularly expand their power in the course of doing business. The exceptions come about when the governments are weak for some reason, forced by war or popular protests or enticed by greater gains elsewhere.

An example of greater gains: trade treaties, in which there are stipulated dispute resolution mechanisms (for instance NAFTA). Governments want to promote wealth and productivity to make their populations happier, and in this cause they will establish a process for differential treatment of corporations.

If we look at canon extraterritoriality, there's no balancing gain for national governments. More money? Nope - in fact they arguably lose sources of revenue. More power? Nope - they give up jurisdiction. More glory? Nope - it's humiliation all around.

What would it take to make a government accept a massive humiliation? If history is any guide, overwhelming force. Period. Do the megas have massive military power? No, or at least nothing to compare with national forces, and they sure as hell don't want to look imperial if they don't have to.

So there has to be a quid pro quo. There has to be some reason for a government to offer up privileges to big corporations.

Here's a thought.

The first model is that a corp comes to a government and says: "We want to establish a company town, under our own rules and jurisdictions, and we want our executives to have special legal privileges that place them beyond the power of your regular cops. But wait, before you laugh and kick us out, this is going to be so profitable for us that we will pay an enhanced lease fee for the land, which will more than make up for tax losses, and you get to save money on policing, and of course government officials will get cushy jobs with us on retirement."

This works, because it can be justified on the grounds of cost, of profit, and of corruption. It also works because the same corp can, five years later, say: "Y'know, we'd love to expand our holdings here and pay you many more times the cash while we establish huge factories and employ thousands of people, but La Republica de las Bananas is offering us a much lower lease rate. Would you like to sweeten the pot with an extradition agreement so that miscreants can't escape our corporate justice?"

Pretty soon you may have a few megacorps arranging similar deals on similar terms, and now instead of shoving something down the throat of a government that can simply revoke a corporate charter, pierce the corporate veil and shove everybody in jail for criminal conspiracy and pocket the cash, you have a clear quid pro quo arrangement.

It then only makes sense to have multilateral talks between megas and governments in which the terms of these deals are regularised, with governments giving up limited chunks of jurisdiction in return for fat sacks of cash money, plus wonderful prizes for their servants.

Another model might be where you have a truly wrecked piece of territory. It's rife with guerillas, ghouls, or just plain toxic waste, and the government says to the corps: "My friends, we're setting up an auction. Whoever will clean up this place, may within ten calendar years arrange a long term lease (999 years) on this property and hold effective independent jurisdiction over this area. Here are the documents laying out the area defined, the terms of approval for what constitutes adequate rehabilitation of the area, and you can submit your bids for the lease terms to our office here. Don't be strangers, now! Er, the reserve price is $100/acre/year in 2020 prices."

In this case, the government willingly opens negotiations for very clear reasons, with clear benefits for the corps as well as the government. The public interest is nominally served, by cleaning up blight, and it offers corps a foothold in a world gone mad.

Again, to rationalise the different cases, a wide-ranging treaty can be negotiated some time after the fact.

I'm sure that there are other models, and I'd love to hear other people's ideas.

You've overlooked the third premise, and the one that the situation is based on, which is that of foreign embassies and similar international agreements.

When you're at the Russian consulate in Washington DC, you are *not* under US juridstiction, but under Russian.

When you're on Shiawase's corporate campus, you're under Shiawase law.

Sawm thing, only with massive corporations having control of the area, rather than a state government.

No, that wasn't an oversight at all. I examined it, and then rejected it because it's not particularly similar. I observed that there's no presentation of credentials, no procedure analogous to declaring someone persona non grata and if you want to go deeper into it, there's no analogue of a diplomatic raison d'etre, nor establishment of a mission.

Diplomatic missions are there for a recognised purpose in international relations. They have a particular role, and the delineation of consulates, embassies and their grounds is all part of a well-understood structure.

Corporate grounds, on the other hand, have no such reciprocity of function, have no justification in international relations, and the immunities extended to executives and other power players in the corporation have more in common with the immunities of foreign nationals under the treaties imposed on China in the dying years of the nineteenth century. In particular, the Business Recognition Accords give the megacorps prerogatives without much in the way of review by the national government, whereas if the UCAS didn't want an embassy from the CAS (improbable, but hypothetical) then they could simply tell them to go pound sand. They don't have this option, under the BRA, with respect to Cross or Wuxing.

Extraterritorial areas under the BRA are there for commerce, plain and simple, and the big boys get it because ... well, because they're big.

In short, I discarded the analogy of embassies because it doesn't apply.

I'm sorry you disagree, but that is explicitly the canon explanation. http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Shiawase_Decision

Corporate territory is sovereign territory, and extraterratorial corps are nation-states into themselves. The explanation of how Shiawase managed to make this happen is above, but it is to the letter exactly how it works in SR.

Oh, I got that part. I'm absolutely up to the minute on that facet. This is all in the context of verisimilitude in the development of extraterritoriality. The canon explanation is, to be polite, somewhat lacking. I'm trying to figure out what would make more sense, and yet reasonably closely approximate the setting that we know and love.

Premise: there is extraterritoriality

Question: how did we get here and what form does it take in detail?

Because as a picker of nits, the canonical history makes me twitch, and when players want explanations because they are trying to ride the line of what's possible and meaningful, I end up tied in knots.

Actually, this is all there, it's jst on teh down-low.

For instance, COrporate citizens have a corporate SIN ... it's tied in to teh number that they broadcast everywhere, their credentials on sight to everyone. Just by walking around, they, literally, broadcast "I am a citzen of Shiawase" ... they just don't have to dig into a pocket and root out an ID card. More efficient. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Declaration of non-persona is also included ... someone can be stripped of their corporate SIN and kicked out. Corporate enclaves can also give sanctuarary, for instance when a willing extraction slips out of, say, Ares, and into Shiawase territory, Ares can *request* that they get them back, as they're their corporate property, but Shiawase's under no obligation to do so as the only authority that matters on their property is theirs alone. Ares could escalate, but that's the same as if a nation decided to break into a foreign embassy to grab someone. International Incident in*deed*.

As for diplomatic relations, there are several. MOST are profit based of course, that's what corps *do*, but not all. Ares is always wanting to bring more people into the Ares way of life, and possibly accept new citizens, run espionage, support ciizens that are in another nation by serving as a consulate to contact in case of trouble, watch for media coverage and environmental issues ... they stay *busy* out there.

Actually, this is all there, it's jst on teh down-low.

For instance, COrporate citizens have a corporate SIN ... it's tied in to teh number that they broadcast everywhere, their credentials on sight to everyone. Just by walking around, they, literally, broadcast "I am a citzen of Shiawase" ... they just don't have to dig into a pocket and root out an ID card. More efficient. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Declaration of non-persona is also included ... someone can be stripped of their corporate SIN and kicked out. Corporate enclaves can also give sanctuarary, for instance when a willing extraction slips out of, say, Ares, and into Shiawase territory, Ares can *request* that they get them back, as they're their corporate property, but Shiawase's under no obligation to do so as the only authority that matters on their property is theirs alone. Ares could escalate, but that's the same as if a nation decided to break into a foreign embassy to grab someone. International Incident in*deed*.

As for diplomatic relations, there are several. MOST are profit based of course, that's what corps *do*, but not all. Ares is always wanting to bring more people into the Ares way of life, and possibly accept new citizens, run espionage, support ciizens that are in another nation by serving as a consulate to contact in case of trouble, watch for media coverage and environmental issues ... they stay *busy* out there.

I was thinking about this last night.

How would police investigate a crime? Would KE (or a similar security corporation) have jurisdiction across different megacorps they served? Would they share information with the megacorp?

Real example: A shadowrun team came into my Corporate facility's cafeteria and had lunch. I, the investigating officer working for a 3rd-party law enforcement firm, would like to example the security footage to see if they match the criminals I know who pulled a similar stunt at at facility in another megacorp. However, the megacorp's cafeteria has "high level meetings everyday"; would they share information?

Something innocuous as that type of security footage would make actually investigating a crime and producing a chain of evidence really problematic. UNLESS, the 3rd party security force had agreements in place to share information among their clients, without divulging information.

Either way, a fascinating set of circumstances.

The corps generally don't share crime data, and the governments aren't too willing to help the corps in return (Theirs is a bitter relationship, most often) ... this can change based on social settings, of course. If, for instance, you're a racist D-bag with a long relationship with Renraku, then you're likely to order your police to work hand-in-hand with them. If you're a Lone Star officer and Knight Errant got hit, you'll probably sit back, let the Shadowrun team roll past you, and when KE shows up and asks why, you shrug, say, "They weren't speeding," and smile over your coffee cup.

Remember: Shadowrun Megas are a lot like Feudal Empires ... they snarl at one another, and the "Bold captain with a Letter of Marque" in one is "Lowlife pirate scum" in another. Admitting that a group of 'runners broke in to your secure facility and made off with your new prototype Guacamole is a huge embarassment and they don't take kindly to all the laughing and pointing that follows, so they don't ask the other corps about it if at all possible.

So, you can expect that most investigations will be road blocked, with a whole lot of territorialism and "My crew will handle it." talk. If you think that there's bad blood between teh FBI and local police, you'd best believe that it's nothing compared to when the cops (Lone Star) and local security from Firm X have a pissing contest.

Oh, it has been a long time since the last time that topic was brought up...

No. Not at all.

When you're in a Russian embassy or consulate anywhere in the US, you are still inside a jurisdiction of the US.

Diplomatic immunity means US law enforcement agencies cannot search the building for evidence or suspect, and cannot detain nor prosecute diplomatic personnels without an agreement from the Russia government (through its ambassador or ministry of foreign affairs).

If a non-diplomat commit a murder inside an embassy, and even if the ambassador denies the police access to gather evidence, the murder could still be prosecuted based on testimonies and evidence gathered outside the embassy ground.

Russian laws may apply following the original meaning of extraterritoriality, which has nothing to do with diplomatic immunity. A lot of countries (especially the US) allow themselves to prosecute crimes committed abroad by or against one of their citizens (or corporations). That's extraterritoriality - applying a country's law outside its territory. So the Russian government could prosecute the murder by or of a Russian diplomat (even if it has been committed outside its embassy). Notorious examples of such prosecutions by the US include 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and 2000 USS Cole bombing.

US also specifically has a Supreme Court ruling on the 1979 US embassy storming in Tehran asserting the fact that the embassy was not US soil.

The only case where only Russian laws apply is when you're an Hollywood set the screenwriter called out as a Russian consulate. In Real Life, no.

According to canon, the road to corporate extraterritoriality in the US was first opened by the Supreme Court (which never ever had a problem with humiliating the administration) in 2001, then was pushed further down the road when the major corporations struck the deal with the governement to fund the rebuilding of Manhattan after 2005.

I can imagine Japanese and South Korean corporations also getting a similar deal in exchange for investments in the former republic of North Korea (no reference for this in canon, except for a mention of MCT recovering North Korea nukes).

Corporate extraterritoriality as we know it in the Shadowrun RPG did not become an international norm before the BRA 2042. That is, we don't know what exact level of privileges the corporations had before that. Then, by 2042, US and Canada have merged under a corrupt government, CAS and California have split and lost a chunk of their territory to Aztlan, Germany is recovering from a Russian attack on Berlin, Great Britain is a dictatorship anyway, while Japan and Aztlan are powerhouses who precisely intend on using extraterritorial megacorporate holdings instead of straight-out invasion for their expansion.

I could go on for a long time on this topic, so for now I'll starting pointing to my own take on the matter based on canon : http://nmath.free.fr/onyx/en/files/megacorporatism.html

alternately, megacorps due have the raw power to force it down the throats of the local governments, it just isn't military in nature (or at least, not exclusively military in nature... there's something to be said for the fact that the corporate court can decide to use thor shots at a moment's notice, while the various governments are not noted as having that capability).

The other thing about the Shiawase Decision that seems implausible to me is the idea that if something like that happened, everyone in North America would just sort of roll over and take it.

Recently, a cattle rancher named Cliven Bundy was able to rally a band of armed extremists against the Bureau of Land Management over the comparatively minor issue of grazing fees for his cattle.

So, you'd think that realistically, something like the Shiawase Decision might kick off a civil war, insurgency, widespread civil noncompliance, or something.

To be fair, the Cliven Bundy affair was so strange that had something like that been alluded to in the canon when it was first written it wouldn't have seemed believable at the time.

I agree with you about the Shiawase decision's weirdness, and the weirdness of the people in just accepting it. It seems like a prime source for hysterical, homocidal outrage.

Cliven Bundy's story is an interesting one. It's not widely spoken about, but the BLM has a long, long, LONG history of being as popular as a yellowjacket at a barbecue, west of the Mississippi. Ever heard of the sagebrush wars? I won't go into it here (and for the record, I don't quite take Cliven's side on all this either, although I think there's plenty of blame to go round) but there's a strong case to be made that between the BLM and the USDA you can find most of the reasons for the general popularity of the federal government decreasing the further west you go.

So yes, there's every reason to believe that both the Seretech and Shiawase decisions would have been more likely to result in lynchings, in a turbulent, frightened, starving population.

The 2001 Shiawase decision retroactively appears as a decisive moment in megacorporate history once megacorporations have become the dominant force in the world. But I'm not certain it would have appeared as such to people at the time. A group of terrorists had broke into a nuclear plant with weapons and explosives. The federal government sued the corporation for reckless endangerment and the corporation answered by accusing the government of actively preventing them from providing an adequate level of security.

The Shiawase decision is not something you can blame on the White House or the Congress for. In this regards, you can compare it to Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission, which have yet to cause a civil war, insurgency or widespread civil noncompliance.

If anything, the corporation would be the target of such unrest. And that's actually what was supposed to have happened. It ended up with US soldiers of Amerindian descent seizing an ICBM because one of those corporations was getting free access to national parks and Amerindian tribal reserves. I'm not certain that was anything like a random, isolated event, for the government to consider rounding up entire tribes to put them into extralegal detention camps was the thing to do.

The other aspect of this is that I see the idea that the federal government would initially be more of a hindrance than a help to security seems to me to be very much an artifact of the 80s. (As perhaps it should be since Shadowrun is very much an 80s game. It's a stereotype of the 80s that the feds are all incompetent and unreasonable and only the locals can handle truly hair situations; see Lone Wolf McQuade.) Today, the Department of Energy has a SWAT team and I am pretty sure they exist to be able to intervene in exactly a Shiawase-type situation. In general, government agencies have become increasingly militarized and police forces at all levels seem to have clear protocols that allow them to use deadly force within the legal framework.

In contrast, the idea that the government would provide an anemic or fuddy-duddy response to attempted nuclear terrorism and that a private entity would be the ones better able to step up with overwhelming force...well, like I said, that just kind of strikes me like an 80s idea.

Compare government responses to riots back in the 60s and 70s versus today. There is a huge increase in firepower, specialized training, and specialized equipment compared to back then. What they have today is not perfect either but compare it to the Keystone Cops type show that you read about when you get into historical examples and there has been a huge improvement.

Not quite sure I agree with you there. Sure, the '80s were full of the Myth of the Lone Hero (see Rambo for examples) but a large part of that also had to do with reactions to the past. Vietnam, and the way that the White House got involved in operational decisions to the detriment of combat effectiveness, Nixon's impeachment, Carter's fecklessness ... it all added up.

But on the other side of the coin, the Clinton era didn't do much to convince anyone that the feds had much of an answer to ... well, much of anything. In fact, the two decades following Reagan got us nowhere impressive as far as federal competence was concerned. Whether it's the deregulation of retail banking, the CDA (and the supreme court case that crushed it like an empty beer can), or Heckuvajob Brownie, or the Iraq invasion, or Whitewater and a blue dress - it just didn't look good then, and looking back at it now I feel the need for a drink.

So no, I don't buy any kind of vision of the feds as competent, and speaking as someone who actually deals with federal regulation on a very regular basis, I'm often left staggered at the sheer counterproductive madness I face. Sure, there are good people working for the feds - great people, even - but a federal response being effective? I, and a lot of people I know, are very cynical about that.



In the heat of the moment, it depends who's on the ground. How long will it take to get the federal asskickers into the place? How well will they be prepared for what's going on? Compared to the security on the ground, who know the place like the back of their hands, and who are already there, pointing their guns at the bad guys? That part's not where my suspension of disbelief suffers.



Two words: Kent State. National guardsmen, with fixed bayonets, clearing an area and ultimately opening volley fire at a crowd. I'm not saying it was a good thing. Not even nearly. But it kind of makes the response to recent events look weak sauce. And yet, it used to be very nearly standard practice, not that long ago in history. Just look at the Bonus Marchers. Again, I'm not taking anybody's side here, and I acknowledge that historical arguments can be brought forward in all cases, to support multiple sides, but I'll bet you that if the response to the riots after Michael Brown had been to clear the streets with bayonets and battle rifle fire, those streets would have been real clear, real quick.

The reason I bring this up (and I apologise to the board ops for mentioning real world politics, but it is in context) is to point out that in some ways we've actually tuned the public conflict level of slaughter way down over the years. And if that does sometimes reflect needing more warm bodies dishing out more beatings rather than shootings, and actually training them to be ready to do some of that, then yeah. That's a thing that will happen.

At most, I'll agree with you that the feds are ramping up the level of readiness for violence in recent years, but I'll observe that there is a corresponding level of real world resistance as well. And interestingly, the more people seem to think that their biggest risk is a pepper spraying and a night or three in jail, the more willing they seem to take that risk.

Bringing this back to Shadowrun: I'm quite happy with the idea that people would have considered the Shiawase decision reasonable, given the circumstances, especially in exonerating the corp for looking after the public interest even while the feds tried to pin responsibility on them. Where I part from the canon history is that I can't see other countries giving a damn what SCOTUS decides in the first place, and I also don't see where extraterritoriality springs from the logic of the case as presented. At most, you can say that the corp gets off the hook that one time because they acted rationally in the public interest, and in a fashion broadly consistent with defence of self and others. Stopping crazy armed terrorists is pretty much textbook self defence, even if nuclear materials aren't involved.

So when I say that my problem is with people accepting the Shiawase decision, the problem doesn't stem from the decision as such (how many people actually care about the court on a daily basis?) but from its interpretation in giving rise to extraterritoriality as an option. A decision on the one hand that corporate security can stop terrorists? That's fine, logical, and people would be lining up to give them medals and handjobs. Turning that decision into a basis for megacorporate immunity? No. Nope, not even close. No. Try again. The same people who got violent at the WTC riots would be just itching for an excuse to throw molotov cocktails at corporate buildings, and at the feds.

The canon explanations frequently mention diplomatic immunity and embassies, but from the context it becomes clear that they are talking about the public misconception of diplomatic immunity (embassies being the territory of the respective nation) rather than the actual workings of it (diplomatic missions are subject to treaties in which the host nations cedes its right to law enforcement).

Ares does not have to ask the UCAS to please accept their candidate for heading an extraterritorial office, and doesn't have to shelve the appointment if the UCAS simply refuses
Ares does not have to ask the UCAS to operate a wireless transmitter, as they would be required to under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The UCAS cannot tell an individual or the entire Ares branch office that they are no longer welcome and shall GTFO.
The UCAS and its outsourced executive can arrest an Ares citizen just like any other foreign citizen.




Anyway, how did that come about? First of all, we should not forget that the backstory of SR is a means to a narrative end. You want to write "the cyberpunk RPG" (actual German subtitle of 1st and 2nd Edition), cyberpunk means balkanized nations and corporate citizenship, so you write a history where the government retreats even further than the "bathtub state" crowd would ever dream of, while the legislative shows extreme deference to to the wishes of corporations.
But at the same time, political movements which want to dismantle the government and/or fawn over the sacred "job creators" are not exactly made up from whole cloth...

Ja, genau! This is what I meant by saying that I rejected the canonical explanation of extraterritoriality as being diplomatic in nature. It's a lot more like the unequal treaties imposed on places like China and (as it was called then) Siam.



This is why I'm working on SRV as an obsessive fan.

I mean, dedicated employee of Neural Necromancy, Inc.

You mean the WTO riots and the NYT's phantom molotovs? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

We are assured in fluff that neo-anarchists, shadowrunners and various other underground groups despise the corps, but actual instances of doing something about it seem to be just as elusive as the incendiaries in 1999. Even though there certainly is enough weaponry available on the streets for some serious terrorism...the average runner's apartment probably holds more arms than most terror groups ever possessed.

Truth ^

The Departement of Energy does not have a team in each of the 60 or so nuclear power plants in the US. The DoE has special response team for its own facilities (Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, etc.). Otherwise each company that operate a nuclear power plant must establish (or usually contract) its own special response team on-site.

Then, the Shiawase decision is not about the government's contribution to security. It's about the government hampering the corporations effort to also contribute to security. Shiawase lawyers knew better than to try to shift the blame on law enforcement agencies (for which it likely was impossible to reach the plant within the timeframe of the attack anyway). No, they shifted the blame on bureaucracy (with bonus points for making the Nuclear Regulatory Commission looking like they were the ones trying to shift the blame).

The canon never addressed what was the issue with the NRC requirements (the best idea I could come up with would have been a requirement for Shiawase to strictly separate the power plant's security from the neighboring aluminum mill's security, thus preventing a quick reinforcement).

Also, the Shiawase decision did not come out as an isolated event. Three years before, the government went after Seretech corporation, whose security personnels had killed two hundred rioters in New York and New Jersey. The corporation had won that round, so the administration moves in the Shiawase affair may have appeared as an attempt to crackdown on corporate security.

I would expect Seretech and/or Shiawase to assert the idea that their security services do qualify as "a well regulated militia", clinging on a debate that has well enough fuel (and for which the idea that the government may not be doing a good job in protecting the citizens does not appear to be a big deal). People would not read the actual SCOTUS decision. How they spin the story is just as important.

First, I wouldn't expect the 2001 Shiawase decision to spring up megacorporate extraterritoriality in the exact terms that show up in the Shadowrun Seattle setting by 2050. To an extent, it's like pinpointing August 1945 as the beginning of the "nuclear age," even though it wasn't until the Soviet Union got the bomb in 1949 (and, to a slighter extend, the advent of ICBM technology) that the implications of nuclear deterrence got truly shaped.
So I expect things like corporate passports, executive management immunity and so on to have appeared much later, possibly only in the 2042 Business Recognition Accords. When playing Shadowrun, we tend to think first and foremost of corporate extraterritoriality as an exemption from criminal laws, because that's the most noteworthy aspect. But it may not have been included from start as well. Exemption from business regulations on the other hand, would have been a valuable first step for corporations.

On the legal ground, the closest idea I was able to find in US judicial history is the Lochner era (1905-1937) named after the Lochner v. New York decision. The court held at the time that the government had no right to limit the people rights to freely enter into contract. Pushing Lochner logic to an extreme, it would be okay for an employee to sign a contract stipulating that he will be shot if he tries to leave the office with classified documents. West Coast Hotel v. Parrish put an end to the Lochner era, establishing the government's right to interfere in contracts to protect health and safety of the people.
My idea would be that, if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission prevented Shiawase Atomics from signing a contract with Shiawase Aluminum that gave the latter security personnel full access to the power plant in case of a attack, Shiawase could claim that the government interference in its freedom of contract had in fact an adverse effect on the safety of the people.
To allow corporations to run and secure nuclear power plants that represent a major risk, the government ought to lift any regulations that could hamper the security effort. To call this extraterritoriality could actually come as a concession from the corporation: such freedom of contracts between the corporation and its employees, contractors and suppliers, as well as the unrestricted fielding of a "well regulated militia" would not have to extend beyond the limits of the hazardous facility.

I know this is far-fetched, but it's the best I could come up with short of rewriting SR canon history.

There is no reason however for a SCOTUS decision to instantly or under short notice become a world standard. The point is somewhat moot in Third World most corrupt countries, where corporations already enjoy a de facto 2050-style extraterritoriality (complete with armed thugs !). Also, the EU actually established in real life something to which the "extraterritorial" term could apply, albeit in its original legal meaning: corporations can operate in any country in the EU following the labor law of their home country (so you can apply say Slovenia minimum wage and working hours regulations to Polish workers working in Germany). So maybe it's a bit of different things going on in all those countries that was mixed up a "the advent of corporate extraterritoriality" before the corporation pushed to align all those status on the US one.

I appreciate your efforts, but I feel that I should point out that I'm actually rewriting Shadowrun pretty much. I've already written a first draft of about half the content, including thumbnail sketches of Matrix and Magic (lots more to come, though) and the canon history. That's what all these crazy threads are about that I keep starting.

So don't be too shy about suggesting other ways to view the whole thing. I'll read it all.

You're in for a ride... (if Nath has the time to write it all down)