mare liberum
Meaning. The free sea: the principle that the high seas are open to all nations.
Mare liberum is the title of Hugo Grotius's 1609 work arguing that the sea cannot be owned by any state and that all nations are free to navigate and trade on it. John Selden replied with Mare Clausum (1635), defending a state's claim to its adjoining seas.
Modern law of the sea combines both ideas: coastal states have sovereignty over a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea and rights in the EEZ and continental shelf, while the high seas beyond remain open to all, with freedoms of navigation, overflight, fishing and laying cables, under UNCLOS 1982.
Example
The freedom of navigation on the high seas under Art. 87 UNCLOS is the modern form of Grotius's mare liberum.
In Indian law
- Article 87, UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982 (freedom of the high seas)
See also
high seas · territorial sea · exclusive economic zone · res communis omnium
Read more in the study notes
- International law: nature, definition, origin and basis (Public International Law)
- Law of the sea: baselines, territorial sea, contiguous zone and EEZ (Public International Law)