INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS OF THE FISHERIES ON THE 
HIGH SEAS. 
od 
By CHARLES HUGH STEVENSON, 
United States Bureau of Fisheries. 
Sd 
DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN HIGH SEAS AND TERRITORIAL WATERS. 
As used in defining the jurisdiction of admiralty courts, the term high seas 
implies all the waters of the ocean, and all connecting arms and bays, ‘‘ exterior 
to low-water mark;” but in international law and in the sense employed in this 
paper, the term is not so broad, and it signifies only so much of the ocean as is 
outside the territorial jurisdiction of maritime states, and is what might be called 
the extraterritorial seas. It is now well established that the exclusive juris- 
diction of a maritime nation covers only a narrow belt or margin of the littoral 
waters; beyond is the open ocean, the high seas, free to all for purposes of navi- 
gation and fishery, incapable of being monopolized by any state or people. 
This principle in law is of relatively modern recognition. In the middle 
ages strong maritime powers made claims to sovereignty over considerable 
portions of the seas, which to some extent may have been justified by their main- 
tenance of protection against piracy in those waters. At the height of her power 
the Republic of Venice was recognized as sovereign over the Adriatic Sea, and 
likewise Genoa over the Ligurian. France arrogated to herself a considerable 
stretch of the seas adjacent to her coasts. By his celebrated decision of arbitra- 
tion on May 14, 1493, and by his approval of the treaty of Tordesilhas in the 
following year, Pope Alexander VI apportioned the Indian seas and the Pacific 
Ocean between Spain and Portugal. For three centuries Denmark claimed 
jurisdiction over the fisheries in the seas between Norway and Iceland; by 
treaties made in 1500 and 1523 this claim was acquiesced in by England, and 
English fishermen and traders in those waters were required to obtain licenses 
from the King of Denmark. With development in maritime strength, Great 
Britain claimed sovereignty over all the seas in communication with those sur- 
rounding her coasts, and in the seventeenth century fishermen of Holland and 
other countries were obliged to secure licenses from that Government, the Dutch 
in 1636 paying £30,000 for this purpose. Immediately previous to the Revolu- 
tionary war considerable portions of the Newfoundland banks and of the St. 
Lawrence Gulf were monopolized by Great Britain and her colonies, and at the 
conclusion of that war only the determined protest of the United States pre- 
vented the British Government from exercising jurisdiction thereover. 
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