1 - End of the Old Order

Summary

The League’s conference on the codification of international law opened in The Hague in 1930, vested with responsibility for producing (among other things) a treaty on territorial waters. Two major issues gave rise to disagreement: the breadth of territorial waters, with some states arguing for their extension according to local circumstances; and the contiguous zone, with some states claiming limited jurisdiction over customs, immigration, security and fishing zones. The British, as the self-proclaimed guarantors of the freedom of the seas, took a hard line against both ideas, holding out for three-mile territorial waters without a contiguous zone. They could not compel most other states to agree to this – a symptom of their decline as the leading maritime power – but neither could the other states compel the British to accept their positions. This impasse resulted in the committee’s failure to settle either issue, or to produce a treaty.