Also known as: high sea · high-seas · international waters
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The open ocean beyond the territorial jurisdiction of any nation.
Helix Biotech charters a vessel to transport research equipment between two domestic ports. While hundreds of miles offshore on the high seas the crew discovers that a rival firm has planted counterfeit cargo seals. Congress enacts legislation authorizing federal prosecution of the tampering because the conduct occurred beyond any state's borders.
Hector Hernandez and his crew seize a foreign-flagged cargo ship on the high seas and demand ransom. Federal authorities arrest Hernandez after the vessel is brought into a U.S. port. Prosecutors charge him with piracy as defined by the law of nations because the acts took place outside any country's territorial waters.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Helix Biotech charters a vessel to carry cargo between two domestic ports. While hundreds of miles offshore on the high seas the crew encounters a federal inspection team enforcing a national safety statute. The court upholds the regulation because traffic on the high seas constitutes foreign commerce subject to Congress's exclusive power.
During wartime a U.S. naval vessel encounters an enemy merchant ship on the high seas. The captain orders the seizure of the vessel and its cargo under presidential authorization. The court upholds the capture because the high-seas location places the action within the scope of congressionally granted war powers.
Coast Guard officers board a vessel drifting on the high seas and search its hold without a warrant. They seize documents later used in a criminal prosecution. The court suppresses the evidence because the high-seas location does not eliminate the need for a neutral magistrate's determination of probable cause.
A deckhand on a cargo ship is convicted of a minor regulatory violation committed on the high seas. The sentencing court imposes a life sentence under a mandatory statute. The defendant challenges the punishment as grossly disproportionate to the offense under the Eighth Amendment.
No. The high seas lie beyond any nation's territorial jurisdiction. A coastal nation may claim a two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone, but that zone is not part of the high seas.
Article I, Section 8 grants Congress authority to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas. That clause supplies the textual basis for federal maritime criminal statutes.
No. The high seas lie outside any state's territorial jurisdiction. Federal courts therefore exercise exclusive authority over crimes occurring there under the Constitution's grant of maritime power.
Yes. Contracts for ocean carriage under a bill of lading are classic maritime contracts. Federal admiralty jurisdiction therefore attaches even when the damage occurs hundreds of miles from land.
…offices and post roads, cl. 7, or to grant patents and copyrights, cl. 8, or to "punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas," cl. 10. It might not even need the power to raise and support an Army and Navy, cls. 12 and 13, for fewer people would engage in commercial shipping if they thought that a foreign power…