NORTH ATLANTIC FISHERIES DISPUTE 43 



4'^. It has been further contended by the United States that the 

 renunciation applies only to bays six miles or less in width inter 

 fauces terrac, those bays only being territorial bays, because the 

 three mile rule is, as shown by this Treaty, a principle of internat- 

 ional law applicable to coasts atid should be strictly and systemati- 

 cally applied to bays. 



But the Tribunal is unable to agree with this contention : 

 (a) Because admittedly the geographical character of a bay contains 

 conditions which concern the interests of the territorial sovereign to a 

 more intimate and important extent than do those connected with the 

 open coast. Thus conditions of national and territorial integrity, of 

 defence, of commerce and of industry are all vitally concerned with the 

 control of the bays penetrating the national coast line. This iiiterest 

 varies, speakiuEr generally in propoi-tion to the penetration inland of the 

 bay ; but as no principle of international law recognizes any specified re- 

 lation between the concavity of the bay and the requirements for con- 

 trol by the territorial sovereignty, this Tribunal is unable to qualify by 

 the application of any new principle its interpretation of the Treaty of 

 1818 as excluding bays in general from the strict and systematic applica- 

 tion of the three mile rule ; nor can this Tribunal take cognizance in this 

 connection of other principles concerning the territorial sovereignty 

 over bays such as ten mile or twelve mile limits of exclusion based on 

 international acts subsequent to the Treaty of 1818 and relating to 

 coasts of a different configuration and conditions of a different character ; 



(6) Because the opinion of .jurists and publicists quoted in the pro- 

 ceedings conduce to the opinion that speaking generally the three mile 

 rule should not be strictly and systematically applied to bays ; 



(c) Because the treaties referring to these coasts, antedating the 

 Treaty of 1818, made special provisions as to bays, such as the Treaties 

 of 1686 and 1713 between Great Britain and France, and especially the 

 Treaty of 1778 between the United States and France. Likewise Jay's 

 Treaty of 1794, Art. 25, distinguished bays from the space "witliin can- 

 non-shot of the coast" in regard to the right of seizure in times of war. 

 If the projxised Tnaty of 180G and the Treaty of 1818 contained no 

 disposition to that effect, the explanation may be found in the fact that 

 the first extended the marginal belt to five miles, and also in the cir- 

 cumstance that the American proposition of 1818 in that respect was not 

 limited to "bays," liut extended to "chambers formed by headlands" 

 and to "five marine miles from a right line from one headland to an- 

 other." a proposition which in the times of the Napoleonic wars would 

 have affected to a very large extent the operations of the British navy ; 



(r/'i Because it has not been shown by the documents and corres- 



