[Sidenote: State Property of Maritime Belt contested.]
§ 185. Maritime belt is that part of the sea which, in contradistinction to the Open Sea, is under the sway of the littoral States. But no unanimity exists with regard to the nature of the sway of the littoral States. Many writers maintain that such sway is sovereignty, that the maritime belt is a part of the territory of the littoral State, and that the territorial supremacy of the latter extends over its coast waters. Whereas it is nowadays universally recognised that the Open Sea cannot be State property, such part of the sea as makes the coast waters would, according to the opinion of these writers, actually be the State property of the littoral States, although foreign States have a right of innocent passage of their merchantmen through the coast waters.
On the other hand, many writers of great authority emphatically deny the territorial character of the maritime belt and concede to the littoral States, in the interest of the safety of the coast, only certain powers of control, jurisdiction, police, and the like, but not sovereignty.
This is surely erroneous, since the real facts of international life would seem to agree with the first-mentioned opinion only. Its supporters rightly maintain[328] that the universally recognised fact of the exclusive right of the littoral State to appropriate the natural products of the sea in the coast waters, especially the use of the fishery therein, can coincide only with the territorial character of the maritime belt. The argument of their opponents that, if the belt is to be considered a part of State territory, every littoral State must have the right to cede and exchange its coast waters, can properly be met by the statement that territorial waters of all kinds are inalienable appurtenances[329] of the littoral and riparian States.[330]
[Footnote 328: Hall, p. 158. The question is treated with great clearness by Heilborn, "System," pp. 37-57, and Schücking, pp. 14-20.]
[Footnote 329: See above, § 175. Bynkershoek's ("De Dominio Maris," c. 5) opinion that a littoral State can alienate its maritime belt without the coast itself, is at the present day untenable.]
[Footnote 330: The fact that art. I. of Convention 13 (Neutral Rights and Duties in Maritime War) of the second Hague Peace Conference, 1907, speaks of sovereign rights ... in neutral waters would seem to indicate that the States themselves consider their sway over the maritime belt to be of the nature of sovereignty.]