A new development this decade to target foreign sex tourists is the advent of extraterritorial laws.

These laws make it possible for foreign sex tourists to be prosecuted in their home country when they return. Extraterritorial laws enable a country to hold its citizens accountable under their home country laws for committing crimes abroad.

Witnesses from overseas and foreign police forces can be used to build the case for prosecution. In the last decade, these laws have proliferated as a way to address child sex tourism.

Twenty-three countries currently have extraterritorial laws including: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom and the United States.

Australia represents a good example of how these extraterritorial laws operate and how effective they have been to date, in the best-case scenario. The Crimes (Sex Tourism Act) came into being in 1994 which makes it, among other things, illegal for an Australian citizen to engage in sexual activity with a child regardless of what country they are in.

The law subjects individuals, companies, or corporations found guilt or complicit to Australian law to a term of imprisonment of up to 17 years and fines of up to AUS$ 500,000 (Government of Australia, 1994). Since Australia's extraterritorial laws were implemented in 1994, there have been eleven prosecutions and eight convictions.

The Australian government has recently posted a permanent law enforcement officer from the Australian Federal Police force in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to combat organized crime, human smuggling, and to support extraterritorial prosecution.