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The Swedish-Soviet Territorial Sea Controversy in the Baltic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

Gene Glenn
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Notes and Comments
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American Journal of International Law , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , October 1956 , pp. 942 - 949
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1956

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References

1 This review of the incidents in the Baltic Sea is based upon a paper presented at the International Graduate School, University of Stockholm, May 1, 1955, by the author.

2 Denmark is also a party to the dispute. Danish Fishery Chief Mourier estimated lost income to fishermen at one million kroner in 1951 as a result of the Soviet policy. He further stated that about fifty fishing boats had been seized and temporarily held in Russian ports. See Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm, Sept. 3, 1951). The author has, however, confined his study to Sweden and the Soviet Union.

3 The accounts of the various incidents have been obtained primarily from five leading Stockholm newspapers and the Utrikespolitiska Institutets Kalendarium, published by the Swedish Foreign Affairs Institute. Similarly, the complete texts or summations of all diplomatic correspondence between Sweden and the Soviet Union have been obtained from the Kalendarium.

4 The note did not specify what those regulations were, nor did it define the width of the Soviet coastal defense zone.

5 Första Kammaren, Riksdagens Protokoll ar 1949, No. 5: 4.

6 Jessup concludes that the right of innocent passage and the right of anchorage in distress are both well established in international law. See Jessup, The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction 120, 194 (1927).

7 Andra Kammaren, Riksdagens Protokoll år 1950, No. 20: 20.

8 The Swedish Foreign Office concluded that, based upon calculations made from the ships’ logs on course, time, and sounding depths, the seizures occurred 21 and 16.5 sea miles respectively from the coast. See Andra Kammaren, Riksdagens Protokoll år 1950, No. 20: 22 and 20: 23.

9 It would seem to be the first time that the Soviet Union laid specific claim to a 12-mile territorial sea in the Baltic, although similar claims had been made in regard to customs and fishing control. Occasional assertions by Russian officials, as by Foreign Minister Sazonoff in 1912, that Russia maintained a territorial sea of 12 miles may be found, but, as Jessup observes, Russia has been forced to back down from this position whenever she tried to enforce it. See Jessup, op. cit. 26. See also Sehapiro, L. B., “The Limits of Russian Territorial Waters in the Baltic,” 27 British Year Book of Int. Law 439–448 (1950).Google Scholar

10 Cobranii Zakonov i Rasporjazenii, No. 62 (Moscow, Nov. 19, 1927), p. 1220.

11 Ibid. No. 50 (Moscow, Oct. 5, 1935), p. 743.

12 The Soviet Union terminated such an agreement with Great Britain in January, 1953. Under the agreement, made in 1930, British fishermen had been permitted to fish up to within 3 miles of the Soviet coast in the White Sea. See Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm, Jan. 17, 1953). A new agreement to this effect is reported to have been signed on May 25, 1956. See New York Times, May 26, 1956, p. 10; The Times (London), May 26, 1956, p. 6, col. E.

13 Until the advent of World War II, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania claimed 3 sea miles as territorial waters, while Finland, Norway, Sweden, and apparently Russia asserted sovereignty over 4 sea miles. Russian treaties with Sweden in 1801 and 1838 recognized the existence of mutual 4-mile-wide territorial seas, writes Stael von Holstein, Festskrift till Pontus Fahlbeck (Lund, 1915), pp. 212–216.

14 Art. 3 of the treaty places the width of territorial waters in the Finnish Bay at 4 sea miles; Art. 4 refers to Russia’s “general 4 sea miles territorial water boundary.” See League of Nations Treaty Series, “Vol. 3, No. 1 (1921).

15 At this very moment the Court had under consideration the dispute on the extent of Norwegian territorial waters between Great Britain and Norway. See the Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries Case, [1951] I.C.J. Reports 116.

16 This position echoed the statement by Sazonoff in 1912 that the question was “one of domestic legislation.” See Jessup, op. cit. 28.

17 A survey of the incidents and texts of the subsequent diplomatic exchanges were issued by the Swedish Foreign Office in a blue book entitled “Attacks upon Two Swedish Aircraft over the Baltic in June 1952” (Stockholm, 1952).

18 The Larex was accosted in waters 45 sea miles from the Russian coast only two months after its earlier seizure. Remembering the earlier event all too vividly, the captain preferred flight to seizure. After 2½ hours of pursuit the Soviet gunboat desisted. When asked to explain the incident, the Soviet Foreign Ministry denied that a Soviet ship was involved.

19 The Swedish Riksdag has received a motion each year since 1952 that an armed patrol boat be assigned to this area of the Baltic with the mission of aiding the fishermen to keep clear of the Soviet boundary. This motion has always been unfavorably reported by its parent committee, and, of course, not enacted. See Motioner i Andra Kammaren, Bihang till Riksdagens Protokoll, 1952–1955.

20 Mezdunarodnoe pravo (Moscow, 1947), p. 262. Peter the Great had attempted a similar project in the eighteenth century.

21 This claim met with the assertion by Danish International Law Professor Cohn that a sea which is bordered by several countries and which has an unimpeded outlet to the ocean is considered to be international water; hence, it may not be closed by the surrounding states. See Expressen (Stockholm, June 15, 1950).

22 Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 6 (Moscow, 1950); reviewed in 45 A.J.I.L. 352 (1951).

23 One of the means proposed for Sweden to retain her national interests in the Baltic is to extend her own territorial sea outward to 12 miles. Writing in the magazine Sveriges Flotta, December, 1952, a prominent Swedish naval captain supported such an extension for reasons of military defense. Ironically, the leading Swedish Communist in the Riksdag, Hilding Hagberg, has also endorsed this proposal. Mr. Hagberg submits that defensive boundaries require readjustment when jet planes can cross the Baltic in fifteen minutes and naval artillery can shoot more than thirty kilometers. See Andra Kammaren, Riksdagens Protokoll år 1953, No. 4:29 and 4:49.

24 This refusal by the Soviet Union to submit controversies to the Court for settlement is well known, so the territorial sea dispute is no exception. Attempts by the U.S. to bring other airplane incidents to the jurisdiction of the Court met with a similar fate. For an instance of this see the case involving Hungary, the Soviet Union, and the U.S., [1954] I.C.J. Reports 103.

25 Charter of the United Nations, Arts. 10, 34, and 35.

26 In a 1950 editorial the Social Democratic Party newspaper, Örebro-Kuriren, declared that it would be better to pension Swedish fishermen than to stir up a row with Russia. This statement may indicate the reluctance of many Swedes to become involved in a serious controversy with the Soviet Union over the limits of the territorial sea.

27 This policy was expressed by the Swedish Foreign Minister in an address to the Social Democratic Party Congress, June 5, 1952. See “Vår Utrikespolitik,” Socialdemokratiskskriftserie, No. 36 (Stockholm, 1952).

28 Despite the fact that the two countries maintain a sea-rescue agreement, there is little likelihood of any agreement on the limits of the territorial sea.

29 Commission efforts since 1951 to codify a law on the breadth of the territorial sea have met with seemingly irreconcilable differences. In its 1955 report the Commission stated that “different views by states make it impossible … to decide on any fixed limit.” See General Assembly, 10th Sess., Official Records Supp. No. 9, A/2934, Draft Articles on the Regime of the Territorial Sea, Ch. 2, Art. 3; and note by Brittin, above, p. 934.