The verdict of the Supreme Court of Appeal (Cour de Cassation) in the Santa Maria affair proved to be something of a surprise. All it does, however, is officially to recognise what is already widely acknowledged in maritime law: that a littoral state has the right to prosecute those responsible for threats to its marine environment within 200 nautical miles of its coast, even in the absence of an Economic Exclusion Zone.
The Santa Maria Incident and Maritime Environmental Protection
In April 2003 the ship Santa Maria was caught by a French Customs helicopter discharging oil at sea in the northbound shipping lane between Calais and Boulogne. At the time of the illegal discharge the ship was in an area closer to the British than to the French coast (lat. 50° 27 N, long. 000° 35 E).
Found guilty by the Paris District Court, the German skipper and the ship owner appealed to the Paris Court of Appeal, which fined the Captain e200,000, of which the ship owner was to pay e160,000.
According to the Paris Court of Appeal, the competence of French jurisdiction, and in particular that of the Paris District Court derived from the location of the offence, in the French Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ).
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