nounplural noun maria clausa/ˌmɑːrɪə ˈklaʊsə/ /ˈklɔːzə/

• The sea that is under the jurisdiction of a particular country.

  ‘The Dutch East India Company, though nominally under Dutch authority, was clearly a state in Asia and asserted mare clausum not only around the Spice Islands but also in parts of the Indian Ocean.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The article analyzes the legal and political standing of the Soviet juridical theory of mare clausum as applied to the Baltic Sea.’
  • ‘In this guarded fashion the claim that the seas of the world outside Europe were Iberian maria clausa was breached.’