Well, one option would be to buy a yacht or sailboat and go out on the high seas and spend the rest of your days there. A bit like a modern Jack Sparrow. At least all the spy novels and Hollywood action movies want us to believe. No, that`s not it. Clearly defined international law provides a framework for all claims and activities at sea, and the rules vary by location. The Gulf of Mexico is the exception to the 200-mile rule. The continental shelf of the region extends 350 miles into the Western Polygon, based on bilateral treaties between Mexico and the United States, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and international law. If you were on a cruise ship that flew the U.S. flag from 1950 to 1990, there was no game at all.
This is because gambling in the United States was and is illegal in most regions. To get around this problem, the Cruise Ship Competitiveness Act was created. This law made it perfectly legal for a ship to offer gambling opportunities to passengers once they reached the high seas or international waters 24 nautical miles off the coast of the United States. (There are also exclusive economic zones where a state has rights to the content of water and seabed in an area, but the surface of the water is considered international. These aren`t relevant to the question of whether you can gladly behead a guy if you`re on a boat far enough away since we`re not talking about dive duels, damn it.) The United States may assert its jurisdiction and authority in international waters by other means in certain situations. The United States Code grants the federal government the power to exercise what it calls “special maritime and territorial jurisdiction”: Another area of interest in international water laws is that of work visas and immigration laws (H1-B). Changes to immigration laws now make it a longer and longer process for non-Americans. Citizens to obtain a legitimate work visa. The Ocean Law Research Tool was developed as part of the Underwater Cultural Heritage Law Study. The study identifies existing laws and highlights current gaps in the protection of underwater cultural heritage on the outer continental shelf of the United States and the exclusive economic zone zones. It also recommends specific changes for better protection, such as . B proposing potential amendments to several acts.
International waters, or the “high seas” as they are sometimes called, are the areas of the ocean that do not fall under the jurisdiction of a nation. They are beyond the reach of a nation, which means that no one “owns” them. The next logical question would be: where do international waters begin? Part XII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea also contains specific provisions for the protection of the marine environment which, in certain cases, allow port States to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over foreign ships on the high seas if they violate international environmental legislation (adopted by IMO) such as the MARPOL Convention. [8] But international water law contains technical details that some companies are beginning to notice and use to legally let professionals work off the coast of the United States without a work visa. If a person is staying on a cruise ship registered in an area where there is no HB-1 law, they can technically work for a U.S. company without a visa. You can skip the visa process and start working right away. The Territorial Waters Act also provides for exceptions to labour law. Ships sailing on the high seas are generally subject to the jurisdiction of the flag State (where applicable); [6] However, if a ship is involved in certain criminal acts such as piracy,[7] any nation may exercise its jurisdiction under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. International waters can be compared to internal waters, territorial waters and exclusive economic zones.
But even in the territorial sea, all ships (including military vessels) are entitled to innocent passage — they can quickly cross territorial waters as long as they do not engage in certain specific activities that disturb the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. Sometimes countries make excessive maritime claims that seek to illegally restrict access to or use of the oceans. Still, there is still plenty of ocean beyond the world`s 12-mile borders and EEZ. How are legal issues handled in large parts of the ocean? In these regions, ships and aircraft of any country can fly freely, fly over, fish and extract mineral resources. With regard to crimes committed in these areas, the laws of the country owning the ship or structure on which the crime was committed shall apply. It may sound simple enough, but ships at sea are often in motion, giving investigators and government officials a headache. For example, what laws of the country apply if a person from country X commits murder in international waters aboard a cruise ship of country Y, but between the time of the crime and its discovery, the ship enters the territorial waters of land Z? The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply when one of the following types of waters (or their watersheds) crosses international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, closed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems (aquifers) and wetlands. [1] So what this law essentially means is that if you commit a crime and flee the country to an island or rock abandoned by God, covered in feces, in the middle of nowhere, on the high seas, that piece of land also belongs to the U.S. government. So you can always send the government apparatus to stop you. There is an idea that is firmly ingrained in everyone`s mind that when we are in international waters, we can do whatever we want.
The culturally shared half-memory of being drunk on a ferry as a teenager and losing six pounds in a fruit machine between Portsmouth and Le Havre has somehow become a society-wide certainty that there, in the open sea, anarchy reigns and anything is possible. International law states that all ships must be registered somewhere in an area and fall under the jurisdiction of that territory, as well as their passengers – that is, if you are sailing on a British ship, you are subject to British law. Sometimes people register their ships in places where labor laws are more flexible, such as Panama, to employ people on their boats for very little money while not paying taxes. This is called a “flag of convenience,” and it is believed that up to 40 per cent of the world`s ships in Liberia, Panama or the Marshall Islands are registered by unscrupulous so-and-so who have much to hide. While the inhabitants of the land tend to abide by strict laws and regulations, life at sea is relatively free and fluid in the legal sense. International waters are officially known as the high seas, terra nullius, “land of nobody” or mare liberum (“free seas”) because everything seems noble and legally binding in Latin. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states: “No State may claim to be successfully subject to any part of the high seas to its sovereignty.” Several international treaties have established freedom of navigation on semi-enclosed seas. The Convention on the High Seas, signed in 1958 and with 63 signatories, defined the “high seas” as “all parts of the sea which are not contained in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State” and in which “no State may effectively claim to subject part of it to its sovereignty”. [3] The Convention on the High Seas served as the basis for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was signed in 1982 and recognized exclusive economic zones extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles; 370 km) from the baseline, in which coastal states have sovereign rights over the water column and seabed, as well as the natural resources found there. [4] Anything beyond that is considered international water. For example, the Bahamas does not have HB-1 laws for work visas.
You can legally work on a Bahamian-registered ship without a work visa a few miles off the coast of the United States, without consequences. Maritime Piracy and International Law (crimesofwar.org) “2008 saw an unprecedented increase in piracy at sea, which led to significant international efforts to suppress pirate attacks.