[12] In the 1922 debates on the draft Constitution of the Irish Free State, Darrell Figgis' proposal to have universal jurisdiction over Free State citizens was rejected by Kevin O'Higgins, who said "to set down here in our Constitution a principle of that kind, with no guarantee whatever that it will be honoured or accepted by any single country on the face of the earth is simply inviting ridicule".
[13] The Free State's constitutional status was modelled on that of the Dominion of Canada, in which the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 was interpreted as not allowing extraterritoriality.
While Free State governments rejected in principle the idea that the 1865 act applied to their jurisdiction, in practice no attempt to breach it was made prior to the Statute of Westminster 1931, which explicitly declared that Dominions could pass extraterritorial laws.
[17] The Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act 1976 allowed trial in the Republic for crimes committed in Northern Ireland, and vice versa.
[18] This arrangement circumvented political and legal difficulties blocking the extradition of suspects in crimes related to The Troubles.