Wojna o śledzie i początki prawa morskiego. William Welwood o władzy nad morzem

Abstract

The period of the great geographical discoveries and the formation of European colonial empires caused great international debate on the freedom of the seas. Many prominent European lawyers became involved in the dispute, splitting their support between mare liberum and mare clausum. One of the many spin-off debates was the Anglo-Dutch dispute about fishing around the coast of Britain. Although its most important figures were Grotious and Selden, the theoretical grounding for the British claims to the waters surrounding their islands was laid by William Welwood, a Scottish professor of mathematics and civil law. In the article, the author presents Welwood’s approach to maritime law, which combines two opposing concepts by Grotious and Selden. He thus anticipated modern solutions based on the division into territorial waters and the open sea.