Hot pursuit

This article is about the term used in law enforcement. For the video game series by Electronic Arts, see Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

In law enforcement and law, hot pursuit (also known as fresh or immediate pursuit) refers the urgent and direct pursuit of a criminal suspect by law enforcement officers. Particularly under common law, such a situation grants the officers powers they otherwise would not have. It can also empower an individual to perform a citizen's arrest without incurring legal liability.

International law

Article 111 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea regarding Hot Pursuit grants a coastal state the right to pursue and arrest ships escaping to international waters, as long as:

1. The pursuers are competent authorities of the state;
2. They have good reason to believe that the pursued ship has violated the state's laws or regulations;
3. The pursuit begins while the pursuing ship is in the State's internal waters or territorial waters; and
4. The pursuit is continuous.

If the foreign ship is within a contiguous zone, the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the Continental Shelf, and the Safety Zones in the EEZ or the Continental Shelf then the pursuit may only be undertaken if there has been a violation of the rules and regulations (customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations of the coastal state) as applicable in the respective regimes (areas, zones).

The right of hot pursuit ceases as soon as the ship pursued enters the territorial sea of its own State or of a third State.

Where a coastal state, stopping or arresting a foreign ship outside the territorial sea on the basis of its right of hot pursuit, fails to justify the exercise, it shall be liable to compensate the ship for any loss or damage cause to it due to the exercise of this right.

This right is particularly relevant to fisheries management, maritime pollution laws, and the seaborne illegal drug trade.

In addition, some have proposed translating the maritime right of hot pursuit into a comparable right to pursue criminals over land borders. Although it does not form a settled tenet of international law, the principle has been invoked by the United States regarding Taliban militants crossing into Pakistan, by Turkey regarding attacks on Kurdistan Workers Party bases in northern Iraq, and by Colombia regarding a raid on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia camp in Ecuadorean territory which led to the 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis.

English common law

Hot pursuit has long formed a part of English common law as one of the exceptions to the castle doctrine which affords owners of private property protection against the intrusion of government agents as well as civilian trespassers. As such, it has been exported to many former colonies of the British Empire, including the United States and Canada.

United States law

Under United States law, hot pursuit is an exigent circumstance that allows police to arrest a criminal suspect on private property without a warrant, which would generally be a violation of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches, seizures, and arrests. The Supreme Court first articulated this principle in Warden v. Hayden in 1967.

Canadian law

The Supreme Court of Canada held in R. v. Macooh in 1993 that the right of a police officer in hot pursuit to make an arrest on private property, which it described as "well settled at common law", extended to summary offences as well as indictable offenses.

Further reading

• Nicholas M. Poulantzas (2002), The Right of Hot Pursuit in International Law, Brill–Martinus Nijhoff 
• Glanville L. Williams (1939), "The juridical basis of hot pursuit", British Year Book of International Law 20: 83–97 
• "The Doctrine of "Hot Pursuit": A New Application", C. K. U., Michigan Law Review, Vol. 26, No. 5 (Mar., 1928), pp. 551-555