Reference Instrument · The Legal Seascape

AE-LEG-0014 — Maritime Law & Jurisdiction

The water is not one legal space but many, layered by distance from shore and divided by whose flag, whose port, and whose coast governs. This instrument maps that seascape — where the law reaches, where it lapses, and where the League's room to act, and its deniability, actually live.

Doc Control AE-LEG-0014 Revision A Effective 2091-02-09 Owner Legal & Ethics Approver Counsel Next Review 2092-02-09 Classification RESTRICTED // TIDEWATER-EYES-ONLY

Read this as terrain, not as permission. Nothing here authorises a single act; the Rules of Engagement do that. This instrument tells Counsel and command where they are standing when they decide — what law applies, who could assert it, and what the League's exposure is. The map does not move the line; it shows you which country you cross it in.

1. Purpose & Scope

1.1. This instrument summarises the real-world legal framework of the sea — principally the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) — as it bears on League operations. It is a reference for jurisdictional analysis, not a code of conduct; conduct is governed by the binding instruments cross-referenced in §6.

1.2. The League's strategic premise is jurisdictional: harm to the ocean concentrates exactly where governance is thinnest — on the high seas beyond any coastal state, and aboard vessels flying flags that decline to govern them. The public arm fights where law is present and functioning; the League acts where the map below shows it absent or captured.

2. The Zones — Internal Waters to High Seas

2.1. UNCLOS layers the sea outward from the baseline. Coastal-state authority is strongest at the shore and fades with distance, until on the high seas only the flag state governs each vessel.

Zone	Extent (from baseline)	Governing Authority	Coastal-State Power	League Posture
Internal waters	Landward of baseline (ports, bays)	Coastal state — full sovereignty	Total; no innocent passage	Open arm only — courts & port-state action
Territorial sea	0–12 nm	Coastal state, subject to innocent passage	Near-total; criminal jurisdiction	Evidence/referral — defer to coastal authority
Contiguous zone	12–24 nm	Coastal state — limited	Customs, fiscal, immigration, sanitary enforcement	Document & refer
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)	0–200 nm	Coastal state — resource rights	Sovereign rights over fishing & resources; not general sovereignty	Document; act if coastal state captured/absent
High seas	Beyond 200 nm	Flag state only	None over foreign-flag vessels	League's home water — where governance lapses
The Area / deep seabed	Seabed beyond national jurisdiction	Common heritage (ISA regime)	None	Observe & document

3. The Three Jurisdictions

3.1. On the same patch of water, up to three states may have a claim on a given vessel. Understanding which is engaged — and which is willing to act — is the core of every targeting decision.

Jurisdiction	Basis	Reaches	Failure Mode the League Exploits
Flag state	Vessel's registry / nationality	The vessel anywhere, including the high seas	Flags of convenience that register but never enforce (§4)
Coastal state	Geography — waters off its shore	Its territorial sea & EEZ resource rights	Under-resourced or captured enforcement; vast EEZs, no patrol
Port state	Voluntary entry into its ports	Inspection, detention, landing denial (PSMA)	Ports of convenience that wave illegal catch through

Where the League is strongest, the law is weakest. A high-seas vessel under a flag-of-convenience answers, in practice, to no one: the flag state will not act, no coastal state can, and the vessel simply avoids honest ports. That governance vacuum is not a loophole the League invented — it is the exact gap the ocean's mandate exists to fill.

4. RFMO Closures & Flags of Convenience

4.1. RFMO closures. Regional fisheries management organisations set binding catch limits, gear rules, and seasonal/area closures within their convention areas. A closure is a bright line drawn on the open sea: a vessel taking inside a closed area, or exceeding a quota, is acting unlawfully even where no coastal state is near. RFMO records, closure coordinates, and vessel authorisation lists are primary evidence (AE-LEG-0011) and a frequent trigger for the Document tier.

4.2. Flags of convenience (FoC). A vessel may fly the flag of a state with which it has no genuine link, chosen precisely because that state will not enforce. The "genuine link" UNCLOS requires is, in these cases, a fiction. A stateless vessel — flying no valid flag, or two — enjoys no flag-state protection at all and is subject to boarding by any state. The League treats verified statelessness and FoC non-enforcement as the clearest cases of absent or captured law, the precondition every escalation presumes.

5. Where Deniability Lives

5.1. The League's deniability is not a trick of paperwork; it is a position in the seascape. It lives in three places, and Counsel reads all three before any escalation:

Jurisdictional vacuum. On the high seas against a non-enforcing flag, there is no authority with both the standing and the will to pursue the matter — and so no forum in which the League's action is readily adjudicated against it.
Separation of arms. The open arm (GreenSky Aquatics) and the League are firewalled. Evidence flows outward to courts and regulators; attribution does not flow back. The contamination doctrine keeps League-acquired exhibits out of any prosecution that could trace them home.
Member protection. Method and identity are disclosed only to the degree a use requires (AE-LEG-0011 §6). Deniability protects people; it is never used to deceive the body the evidence is offered to.

Deniability is a shield, not a sword. It exists to protect members from captured courts and hostile flags — never to evade the League's own rules. No member is safer for having broken an absolute, and no jurisdictional gray excuses one. Where the law is absent, the League's internal code is the only law in the water, and it binds harder, not softer.

6. Cross-References

← Legal & Ethics Rules of Engagement → Evidence & Admissibility → Intervention Doctrine →

7. Revision History

Rev	Date	Author	Summary of Change	Approved
A	2091-02-09	Counsel	Initial issue: UNCLOS zones, three jurisdictions, RFMO/FoC analysis, deniability.	Counsel