Mare Clausum

The sea closed. During the 15th and 16th centuries international law recognized the claim of certain states to exercise sovereignty over certain portidhs of the open sea beyond the maritime belt surrounding their coasts. Thus Great Britain exercised sovereignty over the North Sea, be found In t Le division of the new world between Spain and Portugal in accordance with "the Bulls of Alexander VI promulgated in 1493. These claims were repudiated by Grotius in 1609 in the treatise entitled “Mare Liberum” (q. v.), but were defined by other writers, notably Selden, in his “Mare Clausum” in 1618. By the first decade of the 19th century the principle of the freedom of the open sea was universally recognized. Lakes and locked seas, when enclosed by the land of a single state, are part of the territory of that state. When enclosed by the land of several states, they are generally regarded as belonging to the states in question. An exception is to be found in the case of the Black Sea, which was formerly mare clausum when.surrounded by Turkish territory, but which lost that character when Russia became a littoral state, and was finally internationalized by the Treaty of Paris of 1856, which declared it open to the merchantmen of all nations. 1 0pp. §§ 179-181.

The sea closed: that is, not open or free. The title of Semen's great work, intended as an answer to the Mare Liberum of Grotius; in which he undertakes to prove the sea to be capable of private dominion. 1 Kent, Comm. 27.

Defined under Mare in Black's Law Dictionary.

The sea closed; that is, not open or free. The title of Selden’s great work, intended as an answer to the Mare Liberuim of Grotius; in which he undeztakes to prove the sea to be capable of private dominion. 1 Kent, Comm, 27.