mare clausum

American  

[mair-ee klaw-suhm, mahr-ey, mah-re klou-soom] / ˈmɛər i ˈklɔ səm, ˈmɑr eɪ, ˈmɑ rɛ ˈklaʊ sʊm /

noun

1. a body of navigable water under the sole jurisdiction of a nation.

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mare clausum British  

/ ˈmɑːreɪ ˈklaʊsʊm /

noun

1. law a sea coming under the jurisdiction of one nation and closed to all others Compare mare liberum

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Etymology

Origin of mare clausum

1645–55; < Latin: closed sea

Example Sentences

In its expansive definition of national sovereignty, this treaty allowed European states to acquire “barbarous nations” by conquest and make entire oceans into a mare clausum, or a closed sea, through exploration.

From Salon • Mar. 3, 2019

The last have long been pursued by American whalers, whose destructive methods have so greatly depleted the supply that the government of Canada is anxious to declare the bay a mare clausum.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 7 "Horticulture" to "Hudson Bay" by Various

This coastal strip is called the mare clausum, and the rights of fishing, &c., in it are reserved to the country upon which it borders.

From The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by Nuttall, P. Austin

But Cuba has fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of Mexico, and then the Carribean Sea, a mare clausum.

From Robert Toombs Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage by Stovall, Pleasant A.

Several Canadian sealers were seized by the United States in 1886, on the plea that these waters constituted a mare clausum, or closed sea.

From The Makers of Canada: Index and Dictionary of Canadian History by Various