'Muscat Dhows Arbitration. In the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague. Grant of the French Flag to Muscat Dhows. The case on behalf of the Government of His Britannic Majesty.' [‎31r] (70/208)

(S)
23
" State Papers,"
vol. xlix, p. 1113
Opinions of
United States'
Attorney-
General, vol. iv,
p. 285, Novem
ber 29, 1843.
British Case
pp 72, 75.
American colours, and the United States were so
far convinced that their laws and surveillance were
insufficient that more cruisers were detailed to
suppress the abuse of the flag, and that a Bill
was submitted to Congress to strengthen the law
against slave trading. The Tribunal will also
remember that the United States, in 1892, adhered
to the Brussels Act.
The right of police in territorial waters is
wholly distinct from the "droit de visite."
The latter applies only to the high seas—the
highway of nations. But it seems to be as
fully admitted as any doctrine of international
law that a public vessel of one State has
no right to exercise police powers even over
the merchant vessels of its own State in the
territorial waters of another State. To quote the
opinion of Mr. Nelson, Attorney-General of the
United States, given in 1843 in the case of the
schooner " Ariel"—
"It is quite clear that the seizure of an American
vessel by another, also American, within the jurisdiction
of a foreign Government for an infringement of American
revenue or navigation laws is a violation of the territorial
authority of the foreign Government."
Opinions to the same effect could be multiplied,
but it is enough to say that it is an essential
element in the conception of independent
sovereignty that no foreign Power should, with
out the consent of the Sovereign, exercise within
his territory or waters any coercive jurisdiction
over any person.
It is, of course, within the competence of the
territorial Sovereign expressly to grant or to
acquiesce in the exercise within his waters by
the public vessels of another State of powers of
surveillance or police over merchant vessels
flying the flag of that State, and much of the
French Case is taken up by an attempt to prove
that this concession has been made to France by
the Sultan of Muscat, or that this power has been,
by Treaty, or acquiescence, or otherwise, acquired
by France.
France claims that in the waters of Oman she
has acquired in some such way the sole right of
surveillance or police over vessels flying the
French flag, and that the territorial authority of
the Sultan is excluded. Her contentions have
somewhat shifted on this point.
In March 1902 the French Consul wrote to the
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