INNOCENT PASSAGE

innocent passage.Int’l law. The right of a foreign ship to pass through a country’s territorial waters; the right of a foreign vessel to travel through a country’s maritime belt without paying a toll. • The right of innocent passage is guaranteed in Article 17 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Passage is considered innocent as long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order, and security of the coastal country. — Also termed right of innocent passage. Cf.

TRANSIT PASSAGE. [Cases: International Law 5. C.J.S. International Law §§ 14–20.]

“The term ‘innocent passage’ accurately denotes the nature of the right as well as its

limitations. In the first place it is a right of ‘passage,’ that is to say, a right to use the waters as a thoroughfare between two points outside them; a ship proceeding through the maritime belt to a port of the coastal state would not be exercising a right of passage. In the second place the passage must be ‘innocent’; a ship exercising the right must respect the local regulations as to navigation, pilotage, and the like, and, of course, it must not do any act which might disturb the tranquillity of the coastal state.” J.L. Brierly, The Law of Nations 188–89 (5th ed. 1955).

[Blacks Law 8th]