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I have a question about the extraterritoriality of European laws. Let’s assume the following situation: a person who is not an EU citizen, is a citizen of a country in which viewing and storing child pornography is not prohibited (I despise this as much as possible) will view child pornography on the Internet (servers with such materials will be on European servers). Will EU laws apply to it? or will there be no criminal prosecution? I myself read about this topic for a long time, but I still didn’t understand anything. Thanks for the answer

feetwet
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Dhsheeuwu
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    The E.U. has no laws related to child pornography, and very few laws of any kind that are directly applicable to anyone but its member governments. Almost all European laws applicable to individuals are national laws, and the extraterritoriality of European laws is not different in kind from the extraterritoriality of laws of non-European countries. Each country decides the application of its laws itself and will enforce them to that extent if it can. – ohwilleke Sep 24 '23 at 21:37
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    Those are not EU Laws. Every country has their own laws. – Trish Sep 24 '23 at 22:03
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    These are not E.U. treaties. They are Council of Europe treaties, a completely different multi-lateral association. – ohwilleke Sep 24 '23 at 22:04

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As I understand it, your question is whether a person in country X where child porn is legal can be prosecuted in an EU country for viewing said porn in country X just in case the host server is within the EU. This article summarizes the situation with extraterritorial jurisdiction in the EU. The possibility exists if the person has a sufficient EU connection, for example regularly works in the EU though is not a citizen of an EU member nation (see the section on "presence"). With no such substantial nexus to an EU member nation (what would be termed the "sending country"), there do not appear to be any law that would allow prosecution of a foreigner because the material is on an EU server.

user6726
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  • How has an EU national been harmed? – user6726 Sep 24 '23 at 23:41
  • I just looked at various articles, and they say that viewing such materials is NOT a victimless crime, that simply viewing such materials harms the victim. Can this be regarded as a basis for Article 25(2) of the Lanzarenes Convention? "each Party strives to adopt legislative and other measures using the object of jurisdiction in relation to any offenders established as such in accordance with this Convention, if such violation of the law occurs against one of its citizens or persons, usually residing on its territory."? – Dhsheeuwu Sep 25 '23 at 20:17
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    You're conflating law and politics. There is no such law in the EU. If France passes a law declaring that viewing child porn is a crime of universal jurisdiction, then France can (try to) prosecute anybody in the world for viewing child porn. Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death by Iran, enforcement has been an issue. – user6726 Sep 25 '23 at 20:26