So it’s come to this. Photo: Shutterstock
You’re on the run from the law. In a wildly successful pyramid scheme, you “accidentally” betrayed your country and undercover agents are tailing you, waiting for you to emerge from the shadows so they can snatch you – make you disappear. With no one to turn to and no other country willing to protect you, your options are slim to none.
But wait…you suddenly remember your older brother’s best friend’s sister’s husband owns a boat, a plush one that is prepped, ready to go, for its maiden voyage. (It was supposed to be a honeymoon surprise but they’ll understand.)
Questions start popping into your head as you plan to become a lawless and leathery-tanned pirate: how far offshore do you have to go to be free of U.S. jurisdiction? Who rules the “high seas,” or trans-boundary waters? If you manage to make it, could you really live as a free man or woman among the rogue waves?
Before you start plotting your new life as a scoundrel, there are a few facts you should know about the high seas, a mass that amounts to a whopping 45% of the Earth’s surface.
According to Section 2, Article 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, every State has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial zone up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles from its baseline (similar to a shoreline). For those of us who do not measure distances in nautical miles, that’s roughly equal to a half marathon, or 13.8 miles (an actual half-marathon is 13.2 miles).
Congratulations! You’ve made it outside of a territorial zone. You have now officially entered the contiguous zone.
Here, for an additional 12 nautical miles, a State may exercise the control necessary to prevent the infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea, and punish infringement of those laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea.
If you manage to make it past the 24 nautical miles out to sea from the shore, you then enter the portion of the ocean known as the high seas. So are you scot-free from the law? Let’s find out.
Although no one country governs the high seas, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has strict conditions that outline what one can and cannot do out in the middle of the ocean.
The conditions state that the high seas shall be reserved for peaceful purposes and that piracy is illegal (any illegal acts of violence or detention). There is also the Right of Hot Pursuit.
The Right of Hot Pursuit is what any good pirate needs to pay attention to, because that little clause might just be your undoing, leading to arrest.
Article 111 says the hot pursuit of a foreign ship may be undertaken when the authorities of a coastal State have good reason to believe that the ship has violated the laws and regulations of their home State.
So, this all circles back to our original question, and the point of this whole article: If you manage to make it to the high seas, could you really live as a free man or woman out there amongst the rogue waves?
Not if your home country decides to enact the Right of Hot Pursuit. The pursuit only stops when the ship that is being pursued enters the territorial sea of its own State or of a third State, which could then report your home nation. That ultimately dashes your hopes of living amongst sea lions and never having to own up to your mistakes.
Lesson? Stay away from pyramid schemes.
