(b) In 1823 England occupied, in consequence of a so-called cession from native chiefs, a piece of territory at Delagoa Bay, which Portugal claimed as part of the territory owned by her at the bay, maintaining that the chiefs concerned were rebels. The dispute was not settled until 1875, when the case was submitted to the arbitration of the President of France. The award was given in favour of Portugal, since the interruption of the Portuguese occupation in 1823 was not to be considered as abandonment of a territory over which Portugal had exercised sovereignty for nearly three hundred years.[479]

CHAPTER II THE OPEN SEA

I RISE OF THE FREEDOM OF THE OPEN SEA

Grotius, II. c. 2, § 3—Pufendorf, IV. c. 5, § 5—Vattel, I. §§ 279-286—Hall, § 40—Westlake, I. pp. 161-162—Phillimore, I. §§ 172-179—Taylor, §§ 242-246—Walker, Science, pp. 163-171—Wheaton, §§ 186-187—Hartmann, § 64—Heffter, § 73—Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 483-490—Bonfils, Nos. 573-576—Despagnet, No. 401—Pradier-Fodéré, II. Nos. 871-874—Nys, II. pp. 132-139—Mérignhac, II. pp. 498-505—Calvo, I. §§ 347-352—Fiore, II. Nos. 718-726—Martens, I. § 97—Perels, § 4—Azuni, "Diritto maritimo" (1796), 1, c. I. Article III.—Cauchy, "Le droit maritime international considéré dans ses origines," 2 vols. (1862)—Nys, "Les origines du droit international" (1894), pp. 377-388—Castel, "Du principe de la liberté des mers" (1900), pp. 1-15—Fulton, "The Sovereignty of the Seas" (1911), pp. 1-56.

§ 248. In antiquity and the first half of the Middle Ages navigation on the Open Sea was free to everybody. According to Ulpianus,[480] the sea is open to everybody by nature, and, according to Celsus,[481] the sea, like the air, is common to all mankind. Since no Law of Nations in the modern sense of the term existed during antiquity and the greater part of the Middle Ages, no importance is to be attached to the pronouncement of Antoninus Pius, Roman Emperor from 138 to 161:—"Being[482] the Emperor of the world, I am consequently the law of the sea." Nor is it of importance that the Emperors of the old German Empire, who were considered to be the successors of the Roman Emperors, styled themselves among other titles "King of the Ocean." Real claims to sovereignty over parts of the Open Sea begin, however, to be made in the second half of the Middle Ages. And there is no doubt whatever that at the time when the modern Law of Nations gradually rose it was the conviction of the States that they could extend their sovereignty over certain parts of the Open Sea. Thus, the Republic of Venice was recognised as the Sovereign over the Adriatic Sea, and the Republic of Genoa as the Sovereign of the Ligurian Sea. Portugal claimed sovereignty over the whole of the Indian Ocean and of the Atlantic south of Morocco, Spain over the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, both Portugal and Spain basing their claims on two Papal Bulls promulgated by Alexander VI. in 1493, which divided the new world between these Powers. Sweden and Denmark claimed sovereignty over the Baltic, Great Britain over the Narrow Seas, the North Sea, and the Atlantic from the North Cape to Cape Finisterre.

These claims have been more or less successfully asserted for several hundreds of years. They were favoured by a number of different circumstances, such as the maintenance of an effective protection against piracy for instance. And numerous examples can be adduced which show that such claims have more or less been recognised. Thus, Frederick III., Emperor of Germany, had in 1478 to ask the permission of Venice for a transportation of corn from Apulia through the Adriatic Sea.[483] Thus, Great Britain in the seventeenth century compelled foreigners to take out an English licence for fishing in the North Sea; and when in 1636 the Dutch attempted to fish without such licence, they were attacked and compelled to pay £30,000 as the price for the indulgence.[484] Again, when Philip II. of Spain was in 1554 on his way to England to marry Queen Mary, the British Admiral, who met him in the "British Seas," fired on his ship for flying the Spanish flag. And the King of Denmark, when returning from a visit to James I. in 1606, was forced by a British captain, who met him off the mouth of the Thames, to strike the Danish flag.

§ 249. Maritime sovereignty found expression in maritime ceremonials at least. Such State as claimed sovereignty over a part of the Open Sea required foreign vessels navigating on that part to honour its flag[485] as a symbol of recognition of its sovereignty. So late as 1805 the British Admiralty Regulations contained an order[486] to the effect that "when any of His Majesty's ships shall meet with the ships of any foreign Power within His Majesty's Seas (which extend to Cape Finisterre), it is expected that the said foreign ships do strike their topsail and take in their flag, in acknowledgment of His Majesty's sovereignty in those seas; and if any do resist, all flag officers and commanders are to use their utmost endeavours to compel them thereto, and not suffer any dishonour to be done to His Majesty."

But apart from maritime ceremonials maritime sovereignty found expression in the levying of tolls from foreign ships, in the interdiction of fisheries to foreigners, and in the control or even the prohibition of foreign navigation. Thus, Portugal and Spain attempted, after the discovery of America, to keep foreign vessels altogether out of the seas over which they claimed sovereignty. The magnitude of this claim created an opposition to the very existence of such rights. English, French, and Dutch explorers and traders navigated on the Indian Ocean and the Pacific in spite of the Spanish and Portuguese interdictions. And when, in 1580, the Spanish ambassador Mendoza lodged a complaint with Queen Elizabeth against Drake for having made his famous voyage to the Pacific, Elizabeth answered that vessels of all nations could navigate on the Pacific, since the use of the sea and the air is common to all, and that no title to the ocean can belong to any nation, since neither nature nor regard for the public use permits any possession of the ocean.[487]

§ 250. Queen Elizabeth's attitude was the germ out of which grew gradually the present freedom of the Open Sea. Twenty-nine years after her answer to Mendoza, in 1609, appeared Grotius's short treatise[488] "Mare liberum." The intention of Grotius was to show that the Dutch had a right of navigation and commerce with the Indies in spite of the Portuguese interdictions. He contends that the sea cannot be State property, because it cannot really be taken into possession through occupation,[489] and that consequently the sea is by nature free from the sovereignty of any State.[490] The attack of Grotius was met by several authors of different nations. Gentilis defends Spanish and English claims in his "Advocatio Hispanica," which appeared in 1613. Likewise, in 1613 William Welwood defends the English claims in his book, "De dominio maris." John Selden wrote his "Mare Clausum sive de dominio maris" in 1618, but it was not printed until 1635. Sir John Burroughs published in 1653 his book, "The Sovereignty of the British Seas proved by Records, History, and the Municipal Laws of this Kingdom." And in defence of the claims of the Republic of Venice Paolo Sarpi published in 1676 his book "Del dominio del mare Adriatico." The most important of these books defending maritime sovereignty is that of Selden. King Charles I., by whose command Selden's "Mare Clausum" was printed in 1635, was so much impressed by it that he instructed in 1629 his ambassador in the Netherlands to complain of the audacity of Grotius and to request that the author of the "Mare liberum" should be punished.[491]

The general opposition to Grotius's bold attack on maritime sovereignty prevented his immediate victory. Too firmly established were the then recognised claims to sovereignty over certain parts of the Open Sea for the novel principle of the freedom of the sea to supplant them. Progress was made regarding one point only—namely, freedom of navigation of the sea. England had never pushed her claims so far as to attempt the prohibition of free navigation on the so-called British Seas. And although Venice succeeded in keeping up her control of navigation on the Adriatic till the middle of the seventeenth century, it may be said that in the second half of that century navigation on all parts of the Open Sea was practically free for vessels of all nations. But with regard to other points, claims to maritime sovereignty continued to be kept up. Thus the Netherlands had by article 4 of the Treaty of Westminster, 1674, to acknowledge that their vessels had to salute the British flag within the "British Seas" as a recognition of British maritime sovereignty.[492]

§ 251. In spite of opposition, the work of Grotius was not to be undone. All prominent writers of the eighteenth century take up again the case of the freedom of the Open Sea, making a distinction between the maritime belt which is to be considered under the sway of the littoral States, and, on the other hand, the High Seas, which are under no State's sovereignty. The leading author is Bynkershoek, whose standard work, "De dominio maris," appeared in 1702. Vattel, G. F. de Martens, Azuni, and others follow the lead. And although Great Britain upheld her claim to the salute due to her flag within the "British Seas" throughout the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the principle of the freedom of the Open Sea became more and more vigorous with the growth of the navies of other States; and at the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century this principle became universally recognised in theory and practice. Great Britain silently dropped her claim to the salute due to her flag, and with it her claim to maritime sovereignty, and became now a champion of the freedom of the Open Sea. When, in 1821, Russia, who was then still the owner of Alaska in North America, attempted to prohibit all foreign ships from approaching the shore of Alaska within one hundred Italian miles, Great Britain and the United States protested in the interest of the freedom of the Open Sea, and Russia dropped her claims in conventions concluded with the protesting Powers in 1824 and 1825. And when, after Russia had sold Alaska in 1867 to the United States, the latter made regulations regarding the killing of seals within Behring Sea, claiming thereby jurisdiction and control over a part of the Open Sea, a conflict arose in 1886 with Great Britain, which was settled by arbitration[493] in 1893 in favour of the freedom of the Open Sea.

II CONCEPTION OF THE OPEN SEA

Field, article 53—Westlake, I. p. 160—Moore, II. § 308—Rivier, I. pp. 234-235—Pradier-Fodéré, II. No. 868—Ullmann, § 101—Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. p. 483.

§ 252. Open Sea or High Seas[494] is the coherent body of salt water all over the greater part of the globe, with the exception of the maritime belt and the territorial straits, gulfs, and bays, which are parts of the sea, but not parts of the Open Sea. Wherever there is a salt-water sea on the globe, it is part of the Open Sea, provided it is not isolated from, but coherent with, the general body of salt water extending over the globe, and provided that the salt water approach to it is navigable and open to vessels of all nations. The enclosure of a sea by the land of one and the same State does not matter, provided such a navigable connection of salt water as is open to vessels of all nations exists between such sea and the general body of salt water, even if that navigable connection itself be part of the territory of one or more littoral States. Whereas, therefore, the Dead Sea is Turkish and the Aral Sea is Russian territory, the Sea of Marmora is part of the Open Sea, although it is surrounded by Turkish land and although the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are Turkish territorial straits, because these are now open to merchantmen of all nations. For the same reason the Black Sea[495] is now part of the Open Sea. On the other hand, the Sea of Azoff is not part of the Open Sea, but Russian territory, although there exists a navigable connection between it and the Black Sea. The reason is that this connection, the Strait of Kertch, is not according to the Law of Nations open to vessels of all nations, since the Sea of Azoff is less a sea than a mere gulf of the Black Sea.[496]

§ 253. It is not necessary and not possible to particularise every portion of the Open Sea. It is sufficient to state instances which clearly indicate the extent of the Open Sea. To the Open Sea belong, of course, all the so-called oceans—namely, the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Antarctic. But the branches of the oceans, which go under special names, and, further, the branches of these branches, which again go under special names, belong likewise to the Open Sea. Examples of these branches are: the North Sea, the English Channel, and the Irish Sea; the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Kara Sea,[497] and the White Sea; the Mediterranean and the Ligurian, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, Ionian, Marmora, and Black Seas; the Gulf of Guinea; the Mozambique Channel; the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea; the Bay of Bengal, the China Sea, the Gulf of Siam, and the Gulf of Tonking; the Eastern Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Sea of Okhotsk; the Behring Sea; the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea; Baffin's Bay.

It will be remembered that it is doubtful as regards many gulfs and bays whether they belong to the Open Sea or are territorial.[498]

III THE FREEDOM OF THE OPEN SEA

Hall, § 75—Westlake, I. pp. 160-166—Lawrence, § 100—Twiss, I. §§ 172-173—Moore, II. §§ 309-310—Taylor, § 242—Wheaton, § 187—Bluntschli, §§ 304-308—Heffter, § 94—Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 483-498—Ullmann, § 101—Bonfils, Nos. 572-577—Pradier-Fodéré, II. Nos. 874-881—Rivier, I. § 17—Nys, II. pp. 140-166—Calvo, I. § 346—Fiore, II. Nos. 724, 727, and Code, Nos. 928-930—Martens, I. § 97—Perels, § 4—Testa, pp. 63-66—Ortolan, "Diplomatie de la mer" (1856), I. pp. 119-149—De Burgh, "Elements of Maritime International Law" (1868), pp. 1-24—Castel, "Du principe de la liberté des mers" (1900), pp. 37-80.

§ 254. The term "Freedom of the Open Sea" indicates the rule of the Law of Nations that the Open Sea is not and never can be under the sovereignty of any State whatever. Since, therefore, the Open Sea is not the territory of any State, no State has as a rule a right to exercise its legislation, administration, jurisdiction,[499] or police[500] over parts of the Open Sea. Since, further, the Open Sea can never be under the sovereignty of any State, no State has a right to acquire parts of the Open Sea through occupation,[501] for, as far as the acquisition of territory is concerned, the Open Sea is what Roman Law calls res extra commercium.[502] But although the Open Sea is not the territory of any State, it is nevertheless an object of the Law of Nations. The very fact alone of such a rule exempting the Open Sea from the sovereignty of any State whatever shows this. But there are other reasons. For if the Law of Nations were to content itself with the rule which excludes the Open Sea from possible State property, the consequence would be a condition of lawlessness and anarchy on the Open Sea. To obviate such lawlessness, customary International Law contains some rules which guarantee a certain legal order on the Open Sea in spite of the fact that it is not the territory of any State.

§ 255. This legal order is created through the co-operation of the Law of Nations and the Municipal Laws of such States as possess a maritime flag. The following rules of the Law of Nations are universally recognised, namely:—First, that every State which has a maritime flag must lay down rules according to which vessels can claim to sail under its flag, and must furnish such vessels with some official voucher authorising them to make use of its flag; secondly, that every State has a right to punish all such foreign vessels as sail under its flag without being authorised to do so; thirdly, that all vessels with their persons and goods are, whilst on the Open Sea, considered under the sway of the flag State; fourthly, that every State has a right to punish piracy on the Open Seas even if committed by foreigners, and that, with a view to the extinction of piracy, men-of-war of all nations can require all suspect vessels to show their flag.

These customary rules of International Law are, so to say, supplemented by Municipal Laws of the maritime States comprising provisions, first, regarding the conditions to be fulfilled by vessels for the purpose of being authorised to sail under their flags; secondly, regarding the details of jurisdiction over persons and goods on board vessels sailing under their flags; thirdly, concerning the order on board ship and the relations between the master, the crew, and the passengers; fourthly, concerning punishment of ships sailing without authorisation under their flags.

The fact that each maritime State has a right to legislate for its own vessels gives it a share in keeping up a certain order on the Open Sea. And such order has been turned into a more or less general order since the large maritime States have concurrently made more or less concordant laws for the conduct of their vessels on the Open Sea.

§ 256. Although the Open Sea is free and not the territory of any State, it may nevertheless in its whole extent become the theatre of war, since the region of war is not only the territories of the belligerents, but likewise the Open Sea, provided that one of the belligerents at least is a Power with a maritime flag.[503] Men-of-war of the belligerents may fight a battle in any part of the Open Sea where they meet, and they may capture all enemy merchantmen they meet on the Open Sea. And, further, the jurisdiction and police of the belligerents become through the outbreak of war in so far extended over vessels of other States, that belligerent men-of-war may now visit, search, and capture neutral merchantmen for breach of blockade, contraband, and the like.

However, certain parts of the Open Sea can become neutralised and thereby be excluded from the region of war. Thus, the Black Sea became neutralised in 1856 through article 11 of the Peace Treaty of Paris stipulating:—"La Mer Noire est neutralisée: ouverte à la marine marchande de toutes les nations, ses eaux et ses ports sont formellement et à perpétuité interdites au pavillon de guerre, soit des puissances riveraines, soit de tout autre puissance." Yet this neutralisation of the Black Sea was abolished[504] in 1871 by article 1 of the Treaty of London, and no other part of the Open Sea is at present neutralised.

§ 257. The freedom of the Open Sea involves perfect freedom of navigation for vessels of all nations, whether men-of-war, other public vessels, or merchantmen. It involves, further, absence of compulsory maritime ceremonials on the Open Sea. According to the Law of Nations, no rights whatever of salute exist between vessels meeting on the Open Sea. All so-called maritime ceremonials on the Open Sea[505] are a matter either of courtesy and usage or of special conventions and Municipal Laws of those States under whose flags vessels sail. There is in especial no right of any State to require a salute from foreign merchantmen for its men-of-war.[506]

The freedom of the Open Sea involves likewise freedom of inoffensive passage[507] through the maritime belt for merchantmen of all nations, and also for men-of-war of all nations in so far as the part concerned of the maritime belt forms a part of the highways for international traffic. Without such freedom of passage, navigation on the Open Sea by vessels of all nations would be a physical impossibility.

§ 258. Since no State can exercise protection over vessels that do not sail under its flag, and since every vessel must, in the interest of the order and safety of the Open Sea, sail under the flag of a State, the question has been raised whether not only maritime States but also such States as are not littoral States of the Sea have a claim to a maritime flag. There ought to be no doubt[508] that the freedom of the Open Sea involves a claim of any State to a maritime flag. At present no non-littoral State actually has a maritime flag, and all vessels belonging to subjects of such non-littoral States sail under the flag of a maritime State. But any day might bring a change. The question as to the claim to a maritime flag on the part of a non-littoral State was discussed in Switzerland. When, in 1864, Swiss merchants in Trieste, Smyrna, Hamburg, and St. Petersburg applied to the Swiss Bundesrath for permission to have their vessels sailing under the Swiss flag, the Bundesrath was ready to comply with the request, but the Swiss Parliament, the Bundesversammlung, refused the necessary consent. In 1889 and 1891 new applications of the same kind were made, but Switzerland again refused to have a maritime flag.[509] She had no doubt that she had a claim to such flag, but was aware of the difficulties arising from the fact that, having no seaports of her own, vessels sailing under her flag would in many points have to depend upon the goodwill of the maritime Powers.[510]

Such States as have a maritime flag as a rule have a war flag different from their commercial flag; some States, however, have one and the same flag for both their navy and their mercantile marine. But it must be mentioned that a State can by an international convention be restricted to a mercantile flag only, such State being prevented from having a navy. This is the position of Montenegro[511] according to article 29 of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878.

§ 259. Grotius and many writers who follow[512] him establish two facts as the reason for the freedom of the Open Sea. They maintain, first, that a part of the Open Sea could not effectively be occupied by a Navy and could therefore not be brought under the actual sway of any State. And they assert, secondly, that Nature does not give a right to anybody to appropriate such things as may inoffensively be used by everybody and are inexhaustible, and, therefore, sufficient for all.[513] The last argument has nowadays hardly any value, especially for those who have freed themselves from the fanciful rules of the so-called Law of Nature. And the first argument is now without basis in face of the development of the modern navies, since the number of public vessels which the different States possess at present would enable many a State to occupy effectively one part or another of the Open Sea. The real reason for the freedom of the Open Sea is represented in the motive which led to the attack against maritime sovereignty, and in the purpose for which such attack was made—namely, the freedom of communication, and especially commerce, between the States which are severed by the Sea. The Sea being an international highway which connects distant lands, it is the common conviction that it should not be under the sway of any State whatever. It is in the interest of free intercourse[514] between the States that the principle of the freedom of the Open Sea has become universally recognised and will always be upheld.[515]

IV JURISDICTION ON THE OPEN SEA

Vattel, II. § 80—Hall, § 45—Westlake, I. pp. 166-176—Lawrence, § 100—Halleck, p. 438—Taylor, §§ 262-267—Walker, § 20—Wheaton, § 106—Moore, II. §§ 309-310—Bluntschli, §§ 317-352—Heffter, §§ 78-80—Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 518-550—Liszt, § 26—Bonfils, Nos. 578-580, 597-613—Despagnet, Nos. 422-430—Mérignhac, II. pp. 505-511—Pradier-Fodéré, V. Nos. 2376-2470—Rivier, I. § 18—Nys, II. pp. 139-165—Calvo, I. §§ 385-473—Fiore, II. Nos. 730-742, and Code, Nos. 1001-1027—Martens, II. §§ 55-56—Perels, § 12—Testa, pp. 98-112—Ortolan, "Diplomatie de la mer" (1856), II. 254-326—Hall, "Foreign Powers and Jurisdiction of the British Crown" (1894), §§ 106-109.