370 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 



The two Coutracting Parties agree to consicTer, as alimit of tlieir territorial waters 

 ou their respective coasts, the distance of 4 inariue leagues reckoned from the line of 

 low-water mark. Nevertheless, this stiimlatiou shall have no effect, excepting iu 

 what may relate to the observance and application of the Custom-house Regulations 

 and the measures for preventing smuggling, and cannot be extended to other questions 

 of civil and criminal jurisdiction'or of international maritime law. 



Now, Sir, I have come to tlie end of the examples as regards fishery 

 laws; and I have next to draw attention to the general principles of 

 the applicable to legislation of this class, as set out on page 55 of the 

 Argument, where we say : 



Throughout the foregoing discussion of the legislation of various nations, certain 

 principles of law have been referred to. the full explanation of which had necessa- 

 rily to be postponed until the examinations were completed. 



For convenience these principles w ill now be collected, and will then be separately 

 examined; 



(I) That by the universal usage of nations, the laws of any state have no extra- 

 territorial application to foreigners, even if they have such application to subjects. 



(II) That Great Britain ha^ incorjiorated this i)rinciple into her own law by a 

 long-established usage, and a series of decisions of her Courts; and that the law of 

 the United States is identical. 



(III) Thntthe British Colonies have no power to legislate for foreigners beyond 

 the colonial limits. 



(IV) That international law has recognized the right to acquire certain portions 

 of the waters of the sea and the soil under the sea, in bays, and in waters between 

 islands and the mainland. 



(V) That the analogy attempted to be traced by the United States between the 

 claims to prote(if seals in Behring Sea, and the principles applicable to coral reefs 

 and pearl beds, is unwarranted. 



(VI) And, liually, that there is no complete or even partial consent of nations to 

 any such pretension as to property in, and protection of, seals as set up by the 

 United States. 



Now, as regards the first of these points, that there is no extra- 

 1164 territorial application of the laws of any State to foreigners, 1 do 

 not feel it incumbent upon me to labour tbat point, because it is 

 conceded practically, I think, by my learned friend, Mr. Phelps, in his 

 Argument. He admits that, as laws they have no extra-territorial 

 effect. His contention, with which 1 have already dealt, and to which I 

 must recur again, is that although they have no extra-territorial effect 

 as laws, yet they may have some effect under another denomination 

 which my learned friend calls self-defensive or self preservative regu- 

 lations. I have, as I say, already dealt with that; but I will recur to 

 it, momentarily at least, again. 



The next proposition is that the laws of Great Britain have no extra-" 

 territorial application to foreigners. Chief Justice Cockburn, in that 

 case to which I have before referred of the Queen v. Keyn^ states the 

 proposition thus, on page 73 of the report : 



Where the language of a statute is general and may include foreigners or not, the 

 true canon of construction is to assume that the legislature has not so enacted as to 

 violate the rights of other nations. 



And in that connection also there is a quotation from a judgment of 

 Lord Stowell in the " Le Louis", which I will refer to later. I will not 

 read it now. 



At the top of page 57 of our Argument, a case is referred to which is 

 not unimportant, in which Lord Justice Turner, a Judge of the Appeal 

 Court, says: 



This is a British Act of Parliament, and it is not, I think, to be presumed that 

 the British Parliament could intend to legislate as to the rights and liabilities of 

 foreigners; iu order to warrant such a conclusion, I think that either the words of 

 the Act ought to be express or the context of it very clear, 



