Territorial waters

“ For the preservation of the coastal fisheries by means of municipal regulations, as well as for the more important matters of national defense and safety, the opinion is growing that the three-mile limit of the territorial waters is too narrow and that it should be extended considerably beyond the present distance. ”

“ Both in Spain and Portugal meetings have been held with reference to the territorial waters, at which resolutions were passed calling for an international arrangement for the extension of the limits to ten or twelve miles; and some unpleasant encounters have occurred between the local and foreign fishermen. On these coasts, however, a limit so extensive would largely prevent foreigners from fishing, owing to the great depth of the water at such distances from the shore. ”

“ With the exception of these territorial waters, bays of certain dimensions and inland waters surrounded by territory of the same state, and serving only as a means of access to ports of the state by whose territory they are surrounded, and some waters allowed by immemorial usage to rank as territorial, all seas and oceans form part of the high sea. The usage of the high sea is free to all the nations of the world, subject only to such restrictions as result from respect for the equal rights of others, and to those which nations may contract with each other to observe. ”

“ Correcting Executive Orders Nos. 8680, 8682, and 8683 of February 14, 1941, Establishing Certain Naval Defensive Sea Areas and Naval Airspace Reservations
The phrase "the territorial waters between the extreme high-water marks in the three-mile marine boundaries" occurring in the first paragraph of Executive Orders Nos. 8680, 8682, and 8683 of February 14, 1941, establishing certain naval defensive sea areas and naval airspace reservations, is hereby corrected to read "the territorial waters between the extreme high-water marks and the three-mile marine boundaries". ”

“ Article I.
'The high contracting parties declare that it is their firm intention to uphold the principle that 3 marine miles extending from the coast-line outwards and measured from low-water mark constitute the proper limits of territorial waters. ”

“ The term 'high seas' has never been regarded by any public writer, or held by any court, to be applicable to territorial waters, and, like the word 'highways,' presupposes the right of the public to make free use of them, and excludes the idea of private ownership. ”

“ Were that rule applicable also to the marginal sea-the premise on which Congress proceeded in enacting the Submerged Lands Act-it is clear that such a boundary would be similarly effective to circumscribe the extent of submerged lands beyond low-water mark, and within the limits of the Continental Shelf, owned by the State. For, as the Government readily concedes, the right to exercise jurisdiction and control over the seabed and subsoil of the Continental Shelf is not internationally restricted by the limit of territorial waters. ”

“ They see the fishing-grounds which they had so long 714 been accustomed to consider as their own—in many cases lying within the territorial waters preserved to them by the laws of their own country, though possibly outside “the ordinary three-mile limit”—invaded and exploited by foreigners, and their own livelihood threatened. They fear that what has occurred in the North Sea will happen along their own coasts ”

“ The Secretary may make rules and regulations governing the anchorage and movement of any vessel, foreign or domestic, in the territorial waters of the United States, which may be used, or is susceptible of being used, for voyage into Cuban territorial waters and that may create unsafe conditions and threaten a disturbance of international relations. ”

“ There are two classes of sea fisheries which have received special treatment beyond the ordinary limits of territorial waters, and both on the same principle—viz., 695 that the action of man, if unrestrained, would lead to their destruction and economic extinction. They are those for marine mammals, as seals and cetaceans, and for certain shell-fishes and coral. A considerable number of countries have legislated for the preservation of seals, and some of the enactments at least apply beyond the ordinary limits. ”

“ Congressional assertion of a territorial zone in the sea appears in statutes regulating seals, fishing, pollution of waters, etc. 36 Stat. 326, 328, 16 U.S.C.A. § 644 et seq.; 43 Stat. 604, 605, 33 U.S.C.A. § 431 et seq.; 37 Stat. 499, 501, 16 U.S.C.A. § 632 et seq. Under the National Prohibition Act territory including 'a marginal belt of the sea extending from low-water mark outward a marine league, or 3 geographical miles' constituting the 'territorial waters of the United States' was regulated. See U.S.Treas.Reg. ”

“ The agencies recently promulgated yet another rule attempting to define waters of the United States. 88 Fed. Reg. 3004 (2023) (to be codified in 40 CFR §120.2) . Under that broader rule, traditional navigable waters, interstate waters, and the territorial seas, as well as their tributaries and adjacent wetlands, are waters of the United States. 88 Fed. Reg. 3143. So are any “ [i] ntrastate lakes and ponds, streams, or wetlands” that either have a continuous surface connection to categorically included waters or have a significant nexus to interstate or traditional navigable waters. ”

“ While there is not complete accord on the definition of historic inland waters, [28] it is universally agreed that the reasonable regulation of navigation is not alone a sufficient exercise of dominion to constitute a claim to historic inland waters. On the contrary, control of navigation has long been recognized as an incident of the coastal nation's jurisdiction over the territorial sea. ”

“ For in their interflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours,—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,—possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean’s noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted all round their banks; ”

“ In those countries which have a zone of territorial water extending beyond the ordinary three-mile limit, it is prohibited within that zone, as in Norway, Spain, and Portugal, and even up to twelve miles from the shore; while in some others in which three miles is in use as the ordinary limit for exclusive fishing, trawling is forbidden at distances beyond that limit. In Italy and Austria steam-trawling is not allowed within five miles of the coast. In Scotland and Ireland it is prohibited in certain specified waters, which extend much beyond a three-mile boundary. ”

“ Land boundaries: 1,802 km
WATER Limits of territorial waters (claimed) : 12 nm (plus 6 nm "necessary supervision zone") ; fishing 200 nm, economic 200 nm
Coastline: 1,383 km
PEOPLE Population: 2,022,000, excluding the islands of Perim and Kamaran for which no data are available (July 1982) , average annual growth rate 2.8%
Nationality: noun—Yemeni (s) ; adjective—Yemeni
Ethnic divisions: almost all Arabs ”

“ The hot pursuit of a foreign ship may be undertaken when the competent authorities of the coastal State have good reason to believe that the ship has violated the laws and regulations of that State. Such pursuit must be commenced when the foreign ship or one of its boats is within the internal waters, the archipelagic waters, the territorial sea or the contiguous zone of the pursuing State, and may only be continued outside the territorial sea or the contiguous zone if the pursuit has not been interrupted. ”

“ All flags, without distinction of nationality, shall have free access to all the coast of the territories above enumerated; to the rivers which therein flow to the sea; to all the waters of the Congo and its affluents, including the lakes; to all the canals that in the future may be cut with the object of uniting the water-courses or the lakes comprised in the whole extent of the territories described in Article I. They can undertake all kinds of transport, and engage in maritime and fluvial coasting, as well as river navigation, on the same footing as the natives. ”

“ The Great Lakes possess every essential characteristic of seas. They are of large extent in length and breadth; they are navigable the whole distance, in either direction, by the largest vessels known to commerce; objects are not distinguishable from the opposite shores; they separate, in many instances, states, and in some instances constitute the boundary between independent nations; and their waters, after passing long distances, debouch into the ocean. The fact that their waters are fresh, and, not subject to the tides, does not affect their essential character as seas. ”

“ It is remarkable that none of these copiously — supplied water-sheds have, to the southwest of them in the trade-wind regions of the southern hemisphere, any considerable body of land; they are, all of them, under the lee of evaporating surfaces, of ocean waters in the trade-wind regions of the south. ”

“ The drawing of straight baselines must not depart to any appreciable extent from the general direction of the coast, and the sea areas lying within the lines must be sufficiently closely linked to the land domain to be subject to the regime of internal waters. ”

“ The river is wholly inland. It is true that it discharges its waters into Albemarle Sound, and that it is accessible directly from the ocean. But, in speaking of inland waters, Congress must have intended waters, within land indeed, yet waters where a naval force can go, and where naval captures could be made. ”

“ If the mariner knows his course, he may find deep water in most of the channels from the outer sea into these inner waters, on which the people of the South will greatly depend for any coasting trade, and supplies coastwise, they may require, as well as for the safe retreat of their privateers. ”

“ For the purposes of this Convention, "enclosed or semi-enclosed sea" means a gulf, basin or sea surrounded by two or more States and connected to another sea or the ocean by a narrow outlet or consisting entirely or primarily of the territorial seas and exclusive economic zones of two or more coastal States. ”

“ Where sea and river meet, Nature draws no sharp dividing line. Here the indeterminate boundary zone is conspicuous. The fresh water stream merges into brackish estuary, estuary into saltier inlet and inlet into briny ocean. Closely confined sea basins like the Black and Baltic, located in cool regions of slight evaporation and fed from a large catchment basin, approach in their reduced salinity the fresh water lakes and coastal lagoons in which rivers stretch out to rest on their way to the ocean. ”

“ On the coast of North America many of the streams which enter estuaries deliver their loads to waters which are agitated, especially by tidal currents, and ill-defined shoals, sand-banks, etc., are produced. ”

“ As the dividing channels of the lower course point to the feasibility of amplifying the connection with the ocean highway, so the spreading branches of a river's source, which approach other head waters on a low divide, suggest the extension of inland navigation by the union of two such drainage systems through canals. Where the rivers of a country radiate from a relatively low central watershed, as from the Central Plateau of France and the Valdai Hills of Russia, nature offers conditions for extensive linking of inland waterways. ”

“ The lakes penetrate the continent to its productive centre. They afford, during eight or nine months of the year, pleasant and safe navigation for steam-propelled vessels. Their waters are pure and beautifully transparent, and the air which passes over them exceedingly invigorating to the human system. ”

“ A subsidence of the land adjacent to the sea permits an extension of the waters landward; the sea will enter the valleys so as to form estuaries, bays, straits, etc., while the high land between the partially water-filled depressions will rise above the water-level and appear as peninsulas, capes, and islands. A bold, deeply sculptured coast when depressed will give origin to an intricate, and what may be termed a ragged shore-line; while a lower region crossed by large river-valleys would be changed to a system of broad estuaries. ”

“ Lands under tide waters are incapable of cultivation or improvement in the manner of lands above high-water mark. They are of great value to the public for the purposes of commerce, navigation, and fishery. ”

“ The frozen rim of arctic lands, the coastline of the continents, the outermost arable strip on the confines of the desert, the barren or ice-capped ridge of high mountain range, are all such natural boundaries which set more or less effective limits to the movement of peoples and the territorial growth of states. The sea is the only absolute boundary, because it alone blocks the continuous, unbroken expansion of a people. When the Saxons of the lower Elbe spread to the island of Britain, a zone of unpeopled sea separated their new settlements from their native villages on the mainland. ”

“ We have thousands of miles of public navigable waters, including lakes and rivers, in which there is no tide; and, certainly, there can be no reason for admiralty power over a public tide-water, which does not apply with equal force to any other public waters used for commercial purposes and foreign trade. ”

“ Every stream has its own water-shed system, and this system is the real boundary of its basin. If we trace this [148] basin to its very limits on the highlands, we may find, not a mile away, the beginnings of another river, which shall flow in just the contrary direction, as for example in the case of the Rhine and Rhone, the Volga and the Dwina. The sources of the Missouri and of the Columbia lie close together, not a quarter of an hour’s walk apart; yet the waters of one flow into the Atlantic, of the other into the Pacific, and their mouths are almost 2500 miles apart. ”