1153 
Internal waters are those within a nation over which it has the same total 
sovereignty, and rights of exclusive use, as it has over its land territory. 
The territorial sea is that body of water between the outer boundary of internal 
waters and the inner boundary of the high seas. The breadth of this band of 
water is not agreed upon by nations, but there is general agreement that it is 
not more than 12 marine miles (the United States claims three). Within this 
band the contiguous nation has full jurisdiction over the use of resources, and 
exclusive right to their exploration and use. Sovereignty is total for most pur- 
poses except the right of innocent passage by foreign vessels through the terri- 
torial sea. 
The contiguous zone is measured 12 marine miles out from the outer boundary 
of internal waters. In it the contiguous coastal nation has jurisdiction for pur- 
poses of protecting its internal security, customs, health, etc. There is a growing 
tendency (to which the United States has recently adhered) for the coastal state 
to claim (and have the claim honored by others) rights of exclusive jurisdiction 
and use over the living resources in this 12 mile zone. Thus the United States 
claims exclusive jurisdiction and use over the living resources within both its 
territorial sea (3 marine miles broad outward of internal waters) and its con- 
tiguous zone (another 9 marine miles seaward of the territorial sea). 
Outside the contiguous zone is the high seas. Among other freedoms of the 
high seas generally agreed to is freedom of fishing. The result is that high seas 
living resources (with the exception of those which at their harvestable stage are 
in constant physical contact with the continental shelf) are the common prop- 
erty of all people. Put another way, they are the property of him who first reduces 
them to his possession. 
It should not be taken that the individual fisherman or fishing vessel has any 
individual right to fish on the high seas. Fishermen and vessels are frequently 
the objects of international law, but only sovereign nation states are its subjects. 
The fisherman and his vessel works on the high seas (or traverses the contiguous 
zone and territorial sea of another nation in innocent passage) only under rights 
that pertain to his sovereign, and not to him. His vessel while on the sea is a 
part of the territory of the nation whose flag it wears for juridical purposes. It 
is responsible to the international community for his acts on the high seas. 
The management of the use of specific (or total) resources of the high seas, 
when that is arranged for at all, is arranged among the affected sovereigns in 
accordance with agreements, treaties and conventions made among them. These 
are rather numerous, highly varied as to nature, and can be of short or indefinite 
duration. The United States for instance, is a party to nine international fishery 
conventions (of which eight are presently operative) having specific responsibil- 
ities among the signatory nations for the conservation management of a partic- 
ular high seas fishery resources, or of the fisheries in a specific region of the 
high seas. It also has a number of bilateral agreements with nations where fish- 
ermen fish in, or near, its contiguous zone. 
The United States is also a party to the general “Convention on Fishing and 
the Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas” whose provisions are 
in effect with respect to the nations which have adhered to it. These are 25 out 
of the 138 sovereign nation states, and many of them are not very important 
fishing countries. 
International law also contains concepts on the jurisdiction over fishing in 
the high seas growing out of the practice of nations and treaty law. These are of 
modest effectiveness at the present stage of history because of the lack of any 
international enforcement agency beyond public opinion, or of a court of resort 
before which the sovereign nations can be hailed without their consent. 
Within the United States jurisdiction over the fisheries is left to the State 
Governments, with certain prominent exceptions. Where the United States is a 
party to an international conservation convention the Federal Government has 
jurisdiction over United States interest in the fisheries covered by the convention 
and these regulatory authorities are lodged in the Bureau of Commercial Fish- 
eries, Department of the Interior. In enacting the legislation establishing the 
Fishery Contiguous Zone the Congress deliberately left undisturbed for further 
decision the question of whether State or Federal jurisdiction applied in fisher- 
ies in the contiguous zone outside the limits of the territorial sea. There is no 
question but what the Federal Government has jurisdiction over fishing ves- 
sels flying its flag on the high seas, but in general this right has not been asserted 
or acted upon. In practice the States have exerted jurisdiction, and still do, over 
their own fishermen fishing in the high seas where they wished to do so, and by 
