JURISDICTIONAL AND OTHER RIGHTS OVER BERING SEA. 27 



SECOND. 



THE ACQUISITION BY RUSSIA OF JURISDICTIONAL OR OTHER 

 RIGHTS OVER BERING SEA AND THE TRANSFER THEREOF TO 

 THE UNITED STATES. 



The first four questions submitted to the Higb Tribunal by the Treaty 

 are these: 



1. What exclusive jurisdiction in the sea now known as the Behring's 

 Sea, and what exclusive rights in the seal fisheries therein, did Russia 

 assert and exercise prior and up to the time of the cession of Alaska to 

 the United States'? 



2. How far were these claims of jurisdiction as to the seal fisheries 

 recognized and conceded by Great I^ritain '? 



3. Was the body of water now known as the Beliring Sea included 

 in the phrase ' Pacific Ocean,' as used in the treaty of 1825 between 

 Great Britain and Russia; and what rights, if any, in the Behring 

 Sea were held and exclusively exercised by Russia after said treaty 1 ? 



4. Did not all the rights of Russia as to jurisdiction, and as to the 

 seal fisheries in Bering Sea east of the water boundary in the treaty 

 between the United States and Russia of the 30th of March, 1807, pass 

 unimpaired to the United States under that treaty? 



The learned Arbitrators may have themselves had occasion to ob- 

 serve, and, if not, it will at an early stage in the discussion of this con- 

 troversy become manifest to them, that in the consideration by writers 

 upon international law and by learned judges administering that law, 

 of the authority which nations may exercise upon the high seas, two 

 subjects, essentially distinct, have been habitually confounded, and 

 have not, even at this day, been clearly separated and defined. One 

 is the exercise of the sovereign right of making laws operative upon 

 the high seas and binding as well upon foreigners as citizens, which 

 right must necessarily be limited by some definite boundary line. The 

 other is the protection afforded by a nation to its property and other 

 rights by reasonable and necessary acts of power against the citizens 

 of other nations whenever it may be necessary on the high seas with- 

 out regard to any boundary line. Much of this confusion has arisen 

 and been fostered by the lack of precision in the meaning of words. 

 The term "jurisdiction" has from the first been indifferently employed 

 to denote both things. It has thus become a word of ambiguous 

 import. 



