Despite mare liberum as advocated by Hugo Grotius, in reality High Essay

Despite mare liberum as advocated by Hugo Grotius, in reality High Seas freedoms have been diminished legally by Article 76 U - Essay Example inner seas and steadily challenging the scope and range of mare liberum or freedom of the seas. For example, Ireland ratified UNCLOS III in 1996.8 Since that time Ireland’s continental shelf consist of three zones, which are either shared with other adjacent states or expanded by agreement.9 Ireland represents the consequences of the evolving international law of the sea in which states are increasingly expanding their coastal jurisdictions to include parts of the ocean once previously regarded as the outer/high seas as contemplated by Grotius’ mare liberum concept. ... Grotius’s Concept of Mare Liberum Grotius claimed that the law of the sea was dictated by the laws of nature and as such: Every man is free to travel to every other nation, and to trade with it. God himself says this spellbind through the voice of nature...10 In other words, the open seas are a naturally ordained method by which mankind is free to travel and to trade with one another. In justifying the concept of mare liberum, Grotius argued that just as there was property that man could possess and own exclusively: ...so has nature willed that some of the which she has created for the use of mankind remain common to all...Law moreover were given to cover both cases that all men might use common property without prejudice to anyone else, and in respect to other things so that each man being content with what he himself owns might refrain from having his hands on the property of others.11 Grotius argued that natural parts of the earth have not and cannot be acquired and as such may not become individual’s property or the property of states. These parts of the earth must be used by all of mankind and by all sovereign states with no exclusive right to possession. In addition nature dictates that nothing should go to waste and as such no man or state should be at liberty to stake a claim in excess of the capacity to use it.12 Specifically, Grotius argued that air is common property and cannot exclusively be used by one person or state to the exclusion of all others. If a man or a state could exclusively claim the air, it would go to waste as it is designed for all of mankind to use. Moreover, air cannot be occupied, a primary requisite for