Freedom of navigation

Freedom of navigation (FON) is a principle of customary international law that ships flying the flag of any sovereign state shall not suffer interference from other states, apart from the exceptions provided for in international law. In the realm of international law, it has been defined as “freedom of movement for vessels, freedom to enter ports and to make use of plant and docks, to load and unload goods and to transport goods and passengers” This right is now also codified as Article 87(1)a of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Not all UN member states have ratified the convention; notably, the United States has signed, but not ratified the convention. However, the § United States enforces the practice; see below.U.S. policy since 1983 provides that the United States will exercise and assert its navigation and overflight rights and freedoms on a worldwide basis in a manner that is consistent with the balance of interests reflected in the Law of the Sea (LOS) Convention. The United States will not, however, acquiesce in unilateral acts of other states designed to restrict the rights and freedoms of the international community in navigation and overflight and other related high seas uses. The FON Program since 1979 has highlighted the navigation provisions of the LOS Convention to further the recognition of the vital national need to protect maritime rights throughout the world. The FON Program operates on a triple track, involving not only diplomatic representations and operational assertions by U.S. military units, but also bilateral and multilateral consultations with other governments in an effort to promote maritime stability and consistency with international law, stressing the need for and obligation of all States to adhere to the customary international law rules and practices reflected in the LOS Convention. Freedom of navigation (FON) is a principle of customary international law that ships flying the flag of any sovereign state shall not suffer interference from other states, apart from the exceptions provided for in international law. In the realm of international law, it has been defined as “freedom of movement for vessels, freedom to enter ports and to make use of plant and docks, to load and unload goods and to transport goods and passengers” This right is now also codified as Article 87(1)a of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Not all UN member states have ratified the convention; notably, the United States has signed, but not ratified the convention. However, the § United States enforces the practice; see below. Freedom of navigation as a legal and normative concept has developed only relatively recently. Until the early modern period, international maritime law was governed by customs that differed across countries’ legal systems and were only sometimes codified, as for example in the 14th-century Catalan Consulate of the Sea (Catalan: Consolat de mar; Italian: Consolato del mare; also known in English as the Customs of the Sea). These customs were developed and employed in local jurisprudence, often cases in prize courts regarding the capture of goods on the high seas by privateers. Under the Consolato customs (and other contemporary codes), 'enemy goods can be captured on neutral ships and neutral goods are free on board enemy's ships.' This established a framework under which neutral shipping was not inviolable in time of war, meaning navies were free to attack ships of any nation on the open seas, however the goods belonging to neutral countries on those ships, even if they were enemy ships, were not to be taken. This legal custom, which hereafter will be referred to as the consolato rule, was long observed by England (later Great Britain), France, and Spain, as major naval powers. However, as time went on and maritime trade, travel, and conquest by the major European naval powers began extending beyond European waters, new ideas regarding how to govern the maritime realm began to emerge. Two main schools of thought emerged in the 17th century. The first, championed most famously by John Selden, promoted the concept of mare clausum, which held that states could limit or even close off seas or maritime areas to access by any or all foreign ships, just as areas of land could be owned by a state, limiting foreign activity there. Other notable supporters of this idea included John Burroughs and William Welwod. In the larger geopolitical context, mare clausum was backed by the major naval and colonial powers of the day, including Spain and Portugal. As these powers extended their reach to the New World and across Africa and Asia, they wished to consolidate control over their new empires and access to trade and resources there by denying other countries access to the sea routes leading to these areas. By quite literally closing off access to the seas using their naval muscle, these states would profit handsomely from the growing maritime trade routes and foreign colonies. Meanwhile, the Dutch Republic, the dominant European trade carrier, championed a different rule, known as mare liberum (free seas), summarized as 'a free ship free goods.' This meant that even enemy goods, always excepting contraband, were inviolate in neutral bottoms (i.e. hulls), making neutral ships off-limits for attack on the high seas. For the Dutch Republic, this was essential in order to secure the safety and viability of their extensive trade network. This concept was coined by Hugo Grotius, a Dutch jurist and a founding father of international law. Grotius advocated for a shift in maritime norms that would make the high seas free for transport and shipping, regardless of the country of origin of the ship. This would represent not only a change in law, but also a fundamental shift in the perception of the maritime realm as something not to be owned, as land is, but rather as a shared resource. Behind this concept is a liberal view of sovereign equality, in which all states have equal access to the high seas, and a view of an interdependent world connected by the sea. As the dominant naval powers of Spain and Portugal weakened, and international trade increased, Grotius’ mare liberum concept would come to be the accepted custom governing sovereignty at sea. Freedom of navigation came to be embodied in bilateral treaties to become part of what would today be called international law. The earliest example of such a treaty is one concluded between King Henry IV of France and the Ottoman Porte in 1609, followed in 1612 by one between the Porte and the Dutch Republic. Once the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic had ended during which Spain defended their claim of sovereignty over the oceans against the Dutch claim of 'freedom of the high seas,' as developed in Hugo Grotius' Mare Liberum, the two concluded a treaty of commerce in which 'free ship, free goods' was enshrined. The Dutch Republic subsequently concluded bilateral treaties with most other European countries, containing the 'free ship, free goods' principle, sometimes resorting to the use of force to obtain that concession, as against England in the Treaty of Breda (1667) and again in the Treaty of Westminster (1674). England, however, also held fast to the consolato rule in relations with other countries, as did France, until in 1744 it relented and extended the privilege to the neutral Dutch. The Dutch eventually established a web of bilateral treaties that extended the privilege of 'freedom of navigation' to their ships through much of Europe. During the many 18th-century European wars they remained neutral, serving all belligerents with their shipping services. Great Britain, in particular, chafed under the arrangement, as it was the dominant naval power in the 18th century, and the Dutch privilege undermined the effectiveness of its naval blockades. Matters came to a head during the War of the American Revolution, when the Dutch, shielded by the 1674 Anglo-Dutch treaty, supplied both the Americans and the French. The British made extensive use of their 'right of search' of Dutch ships, which led to the Affair of Fielding and Bylandt by which a British naval squadron, in peacetime, arrested a Dutch convoy despite the objections of its Dutch naval escort. Soon afterward, the British abrogated the 1674 treaty, which might have meant the death of the 'free ship, free goods' doctrine, but Empress Catherine II of Russia had taken up the torch around the same time. In March 1780, she published a manifesto in which (among other things) she claimed the 'free ship, free goods' principle, as a fundamental right of neutral states. To defend that principle, she formed the First League of Armed Neutrality to which the Dutch adhered at the end of the year (which sparked the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War). The principles from her manifesto were soon adhered to by the members of the League and by France, Spain and the new American Republic also (even if, as belligerents, they could not become members of the League). Nevertheless, as a principle of international law (apart from treaty law) 'free ship, free goods' was soon again overturned by the practice of both sides in the French Revolutionary Wars of the turn of the 19th century. For instance, in the jurisprudence of the American courts of the early 19th-century, the consolato principle was universally applied in cases not covered by treaties. On the other hand, the US government made it a steadfast practice to enshrine the 'free ship, free goods' principle in the treaties of amity and commerce it concluded with other countries (starting with the 1778 one with France and the 1782 one with the Dutch Republic).