The Ottoman Empire, the United States, and the legal battle over extradition
The “Kelly affair
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6093776 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Berna Kamay (0000-0003-1241-8992, Bogaziçi University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 65 |
| Pages | 78-99 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Perspectives on Turkey (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-6346 • E-ISSN: 1305-3299 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/npt.2021.15 |
| OpenAlex | W3160517749 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 30 |
This article examines extradition in nineteenth-century Ottoman diplomacy by exploring an illustrative legal conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the United States. The Kelly affair, which revolved around the murder of an Ottoman subject by an American sailor in Smyrna (Izmir) in 1877, sparked a diplomatic dispute that lasted for several decades. The controversy stemmed from conflicting interpretations of the treaty of commerce signed in 1830. The inability to reach a consensus pushed the parties to resort to the 1874 Extradition Treaty, which was the only official Ottoman extradition agreement. The Kelly affair poignantly illustrates how extradition, an issue of international law that touched on territorial jurisdiction and subjecthood, was a complicated and ill-defined matter when addressed in practice. By investigating the confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and the USA, both putative secondary powers on the international stage at the time, this article challenges the existing historical narratives on interimperial relations that highlight Europe as the locus of power and agency. Even though ad hoc political actions overshadowed the binding force of the treaty text, it demonstrates how both governments adopted a political strategy that moved beyond the intrinsic arguments and logic of the capitulations to embrace a novel legal discourse
Ancient history · Battle · Diplomacy · International law · Jurisdiction · Peace treaty · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Treaty · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · International Law and Human Rights · Law
Legal Imperialism
Boundaries of the International
The State’s Security and the Subjects’ Prosperity
The Ottoman Scramble for Africa
Capitulations and Western trade
The Ottoman Empire, the Origins of Extraterritoriality, and International Legal Theory
Autonomous Provinces and the Problem of ‘Semi-Sovereignty’ in European International Law
Sovereignty
The Ottoman ‘School’ of International Law as Featured in Textbooks
Law, Empire, and Historiography of Modern Sino-Western Relations
Foreigners in Turkey
Resurrecting legal extraterritoriality in occupied Istanbul, 1918–1923
The Emergence of the Idea of ‘International Law’ in the Ottoman Empire before the Treaty of Paris (1856)
The Barbary Wars
Notes on the Extradition Treaties of the United States
The Protection Question
The Burdens of Subjecthood
The Well-Defended Domains
An Ottoman variation on the state of siege
The “Subjects” of Ottoman International Law
Beyond the Anarchical Society
A Nation among Nations
Jurisdictional Borderlands
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |