Note 501 — Chapter II · THE OPEN SEA

Following Grotius (II. c. 3, § 13) and Bynkershoek ("De dominio maris," c. 3), some writers (for instance, Phillimore, I. § 203) maintain that any part of the Open Sea covered for the time by a vessel is by occupation to be considered as the temporary territory of the vessel's flag State. And some French writers go even beyond that and claim a certain zone round the respective vessel as temporary territory of the flag State. But this is an absolutely superfluous fiction. (See Stoerk in Holtzendorff, II. p. 494; Rivier, I. p. 238; Perels, pp. 37-39.)