Livro Fur Seal Arbitration; The Case of the United States Before the Tribunal of Arbitration to Convene at Paris Under the Provisions of the Treaty Between

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THE ACQUISITION BY RUSSIA OF JURISDICTIONAL OR OTHER RIGHTS OVER BERING SEA AND THE TRANSFER THEREOF TO THE UNITED STATES. The first four questions submitted to the High Tribunal by the Treaty are these: 1.

What exclusive jurisdiction in the sea now known as the Behring's Sea, and what exclusive rights in the seal fisheries therein, did Russia assert and exercise prior and up to the time of the cession of Alaska to the United States!

2. How far were these claims of jurisdiction as to the seal fisheries recognized and conceded by Great Britain ! 3. Was the body of water now known as the Behring Sea included in the phrase ' Pacific Ocean, ' as used in the treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and Russia; and what rights, if any, in the Behring Sea were held and exclusively exercised by Russia after sa.id treaty!

4. Did not all the rights of Russia as to jurisdiction, and as to the seal fisheries in Bering Sea east of the water boundary in the treaty between the United States and Russia of the 30th of March, 1867, pass unimpaired to the United States under that treaty!

The learned Arbitrators may have themselves had occasion to observe, and, if not, it will at an early stage in the discussion of this controversy become manifest to them, that in the consideration by writers upon international law and by learned judges administering that law, of the authority which nations may exercise upon the high seas, two subjects, essentially distinct, have been habitually confounded, and have not, even at this day, been clearly separated and defined.

One is the exercise of the sovereign right of making laws operative upon the high seas and binding as well upon foreigners as citizens, which right must necessarily be limited by some definite boundary line.

The other is th..