[343] The Institute of International Law—see Annuaire, XVII. (1898), p. 273—adopted at its meeting at the Hague in 1898 a "Règlement sur le régime légal des navires et de leurs équipages dans les ports étrangers" comprising seven rules.
[344] See Perels, pp. 69-77. The Institute of International Law, which at its meeting at Paris in 1894 adopted a body of eleven rules regarding the maritime belt, gulfs, bays, and straits, voted against the jurisdiction of a littoral State over foreign vessels merely passing through the belt. See Annuaire, XIII. p. 328.
Zone for Revenue and Sanitary Laws.
§ 190. Different from the territorial maritime belt is the zone of the Open Sea, over which a littoral State extends the operation of its revenue and sanitary laws. The fact is that Great Britain and the United States, as well as other States, possess revenue and sanitary laws which impose certain duties not only on their own but also on such foreign vessels bound to one of their ports as are approaching, but not yet within, their territorial maritime belt.[345] Twiss and Phillimore agree that in strict law these Municipal Laws have no basis, since every State is by the Law of Nations prevented from extending its jurisdiction over the Open Sea, and that it is only the Comity of Nations which admits tacitly the operation of such Municipal Laws as long as foreign States do not object, and provided that no measure is taken within the territorial maritime belt of another nation. I doubt not that in time special arrangements will be made as regards this point by a universal international convention. But I believe that, since Municipal Laws of the above kind have been in existence for more than a hundred years and have not been opposed by other States, a customary rule of the Law of Nations may be said to exist which allows littoral States in the interest of their revenue and sanitary laws to impose certain duties on such foreign vessels bound to their ports as are approaching, although not yet within, their territorial maritime belt.
[345] See, for instance, the British so-called Hovering Acts, 9 Geo. II. c. 35 and 24 Geo. III. c. 47. The matter is treated by Moore, I. § 151; Taylor, § 248; Twiss, I. § 190; Phillimore, I. § 198; Halleck, I. p. 157; Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 475-478; Perels, § 5, pp. 25-28. See also Hall, "Foreign Powers and Jurisdiction," §§ 108 and 109, and Annuaire, XIII. (1894), pp. 135 and 141.
VII GULFS AND BAYS
Vattel, I. § 291—Hall, § 41—Westlake, I. pp. 183-192—Lawrence, § 72—Phillimore, I. §§ 196-206—Twiss, I. §§ 181-182—Halleck, I. pp. 165-170—Taylor, §§ 229-231—Walker, § 18—Wharton, I. §§ 27-28—Moore, I. § 153—Wheaton, §§ 181-190—Bluntschli, §§ 309-310—Hartmann, § 58—Heffter, § 76—Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. pp. 419-428—Gareis, § 21—Liszt, § 9—Ullmann, § 88—Bonfils, No. 516—Despagnet, Nos. 405-406—Mérignhac, II. pp. 394-397—Pradier-Fodéré, II. Nos. 661-681—Nys, I. pp. 441-447—Rivier, I. pp. 153-157—Calvo, I. §§ 366-367—Fiore, II. Nos. 808-815, and Code, Nos. 278-279—Martens, I. § 100—Perels, § 5—Schücking, "Das Küstenmeer im internationalen Recht" (1897), pp. 20-24—Barclay in Annuaire, XII. pp. 127-129—Oppenheim in Z.V. I. (1907), pp. 579-587, and V. (1911), pp. 74-95.
Territorial Gulfs and Bays.
§ 191. It is generally admitted that such gulfs and bays as are enclosed by the land of one and the same littoral State, and whose entrance from the sea is narrow enough to be commanded by coast batteries erected on one or both sides of the entrance, belong to the territory of the littoral State even if the entrance is wider[346] than two marine leagues, or six miles.
[346] I have no reason to alter the above statement, although Lord Fitzmaurice declared in the House of Lords on February 21, 1907, in the name of the British Government, that they considered such bays only to be territorial as possessed an entrance not wider than six miles. The future will have to show whether Great Britain and her self-governing colonies consider themselves bound by this statement. No writer of authority can be quoted in favour of it, although Walker (§ 18) and Wilson and Tucker (5th ed., 1910, § 53) state it. Westlake (vol. I. p. 187) cannot be cited in favour of it, since he distinguishes between bays and gulfs in such a way as is not generally done by international lawyers, and as is certainly not recognised by geography; for the very examples which he enumerates as gulfs are all called bays, namely those of Conception, of Cancale, of Chesapeake, and of Delaware. In the North Atlantic Coast Fisheries case, between the United States and Great Britain, which was decided by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague in 1910, the United States—see the official publication of the case, p. 136—also contended that only such bays could be considered territorial as possessed an entrance not wider than six miles, but the Court refused to agree to this contention.