VUB Contextual Research in Law

  (image source: CRHiDI ) Abstract: This conference revisits the history of the law of the sea through the lens of "claimed seas" — that is, the recurrent attempts by political authorities to assert jurisdiction, dominion, or special prerogatives over maritime spaces. Rather than presenting the early modern period as a linear triumph of mare liberum and the freedom of the seas, the lecture explores the enduring tension between claims to maritime dominion and arguments for free navigation from the late Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on examples from the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, and wider oceanic worlds, it will examine how legal categories such as jurisdictio, dominium, occupation, prescription, and neutrality were mobilised in diplomatic practice and political thought. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between doctrine and state practice, as well as to the role of smaller powers in shaping evolving conceptions of maritime o...