Princess margaret born in ottawa

1943 Canadian legislative maneuver

The extraterritoriality of Princess Margriet's birth was a Canadian legislative maneuver which created a temporary extraterritorial space into which Princess Margriet of the Netherlands was born in 1943.

Devised by John Erskine Read and enacted through a royal decree from George VI under the War Measures Act, this ensured that Margriet was not born on foreign soil, which would have made her ineligible for the royal succession under the Constitution of the Netherlands.

The enactment was unusual as it did not specify a particular date or location but amounted to a roaming bubble of extraterritoriality that would temporarily form at the time and place of the birth. Margriet's birth is considered the most significant event of the Dutch royal family's exile during the German occupation of the Netherlands, and has been cited as the turning point for the wartime morale of the Dutch people.