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CNMI claims territorial sea from US
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Posted on May 03 1999
The CNMI, through its Attorney General’s Office, is seeking an order from the U.S. district Court declaring its rightful ownership over its land boundaries, territories and archipelagic baseline.
In a civil action filed against the U.S. last Friday, the local government outlines several points which the defendant has violated in claiming ownership and control of submerged lands in the CNMI.
According to the brief, such actions are in excess of the defendant’s constitutional and statutorial authority and are in violation of the United Nations trusteeship agreement.
In August 1997, the CNMI gave the U.S. Secretary of Interior a notice of its intention to file a suit and never got a response.
With the filing of this new case, the CNMI made another attempt to claim ownership and control of submerged lands after the general federal case law favored only up to three miles and denied the 12-nautical mile.
The CNMI is seeking legal authority to administer, manage and conserve the submerged lands for the benefit of the local dwellers.
An earlier legal research prepared by Mei-Fei Kuo during her internship with the Business Development Center of the Northern Marianas College, it presented two court decisions to support the claim of the CNMI for the 12-mile territorial seas.
In the Manchester Vs. Massachusetts, the court compared the extent of a state’s territorial jurisdiction over the seas adjacent to its coast to an independent nation.
Another U.S. court decision said that the boundaries of a coastal state’s jurisdiction can be traced back to the time of its admission into the union.
The intern also cited the U.S. Presidential Proclamation 5928 of last year extending the country’s territorial sea to 12-nautical miles in complying with the existing international law.
