In The
Supreme Court of the United States

United Statesv.Alaska

Decided June 19, 1997
Justice O’Connor, Majority

CASE DETAILS

Topic: Federalism
Court vote: 6-3
Citation: 521 U.S. 1
Docket: 84-orig
Audio: Listen to this case's oral arguments at Oyez

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Opinion

JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. This original action presents a dispute between the United States and the State of Alaska over the ownership of submerged lands along Alaska's Arctic Coast. In 1979, with leave of the Court, 442 U. S. 937, the United States filed a bill of complaint setting out a dispute over the right to offer lands in the Beaufort Sea for mineral leasing. Alaska counterclaimed, seeking a decree quieting its title to coastal submerged lands within two federal reservations, the N ational Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Range (now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). The Court appointed a Special Master. 444 U. S. 1065 (1980). Between 1980 and 1986, the Special Master oversaw extensive hearings and briefing. Before us now are the report of the Special Master and the exceptions of the parties. We overrule Alaska's exceptions and sustain that of the United States.

I

Alaska and the United States dispute ownership of lands underlying tidal waters off Alaska's North Slope. The region is rich in oil, and each sovereign seeks the right to grant

*Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the State of Alabama et al. by Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General of California, Roderick E. Walston, Chief Assistant Attorney General, and Jan S. Stevens, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona, Jane Brady of Delaware, Margery S. Bronster of Hawaii, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Michael F. Easley of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Jan Graham of Utah, Jeffrey L. Amestoy of Vermont, James S. Gilmore III of Virginia, and Julio A. Brady of the Virgin Islands; and for the Wilderness Society et al. by Peter Van Tuyn, Eric Jorgensen, and James B. Dougherty. leases for offshore exploration and to share in oil and gas revenues from the contested lands.

Several general principles govern our analysis of the parties' claims. Ownership of submerged lands-which carries with it the power to control navigation, fishing, and other public uses of water-is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Utah Div. of State Lands v. United States, 482 U. S. 193, 195 (1987). Under the doctrine of Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 228-229 (1845), new States are admitted to the Union on an "equal footing" with the original 13 Colonies and succeed to the United States' title to the beds of navigable waters within their boundaries. Although the United States has the power to divest a future State of its equal footing title to submerged lands, we do not "lightly infer" such action. Utah Div. of State Lands, supra, at 197.

In United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947) (California 1), we distinguished between submerged lands located shoreward of the low-water line along the State's coast and submerged lands located seaward of that line. Only lands shoreward of the low-water line-that is, the periodically submerged tidelands and inland navigable waters-pass to a State under the equal footing doctrine. The original 13 Colonies had no right to lands seaward of the coastline, and newly created States therefore cannot claim them on an equal footing rationale. Id., at 30-33. Accordingly, the United States has paramount sovereign rights in submerged lands seaward of the low-water line. Id., at 33-36. In 1953, following the California I decision, Congress enacted the Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 et seq. That Act "confirmed" and "established" States' title to and interest in "lands beneath navigable waters within the boundaries of the respective States." § 1311(a). The Act defines "lands beneath navigable waters" to include both lands that would ordinarily pass to a State under the equal footing doctrine and lands over which the United States has paramount sovereign rights, beneath a 3-mile belt of the ter ritorial sea. § 1301(a). The Act essentially confirms States' equal footing rights to tidelands and submerged lands beneath inland navigable waters; it also establishes States' title to submerged lands beneath a 3-mile belt of the territorial sea, which would otherwise be held by the United States. California ex rel. State Lands Comm'n v. United States, 457 U. S. 273, 283 (1982). The Alaska Statehood Act expressly provides that the Submerged Lands Act applies to Alaska. Pub. L. 85-508, § 6(m), 72 Stat. 343 (1958). As a general matter, then, Alaska is entitled under both the equal footing doctrine and the Submerged Lands Act to submerged lands beneath tidal and inland navigable waters, and under the Submerged Lands Act alone to submerged lands extending three miles seaward of its coastline.

In hearings before the Special Master, the parties identified 15 specific issues for resolution, which we treat in three groups. First, the parties disputed the legal principles governing Alaska's ownership of submerged lands near certain barrier islands along the Arctic Coast. Second, the parties contested the proper legal characterization of particular coastal features, including a gravel and ice formation in the Flaxman Island chain known as Dinkum Sands. Third, the parties disputed whether, when Alaska became a State, the United States retained ownership of certain submerged lands located within two federal reservations, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in the northwest and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northeast. For each reservation, the Master considered both whether the seaward boundary encompassed certain disputed waters and whether particular executive and congressional actions prevented the lands beneath tidally influenced waters from passing to Alaska at statehood.

Alaska excepts to three of the Master's recommendations.

First, it claims that the Master erred in concluding that waters between the Alaskan mainland and certain barrier islands were not "inland waters," the limits of which would form a portion of the State's coastline for purposes of measuring the State's 3-mile Submerged Lands Act grant. Alaska argues that, at the time of its statehood, the United States had a clear policy of enclosing waters behind nearfringing islands as "inland waters." In abandoning that policy in 1971, Alaska argues, the Federal Government impermissibly "contracted" Alaska's recognized territory. Second, the State challenges the Master's conclusion that Dinkum Sands is not an "island." Under the Master's approach, the low-water line on Dinkum Sands is not part of Alaska's coastline, and the State cannot claim ownership of submerged lands, covering an area of 28 square miles, surrounding the feature. Alaska argues that the Master erred in construing the relevant definition of an "island" and in applying that definition to Dinkum Sands. Third, the State claims that the Master erred in determining that the United States retained ownership of certain submerged lands within the boundaries of the National Petroleum Reserve at Alaska's statehood. Alaska argues both that the Executive lacked authority to prevent submerged lands from passing to Alaska, and that any attempt to include submerged lands within the Reserve was not sufficiently clear to defeat Alaska's title under the equal footing doctrine or under the Submerged Lands Act.

The United States excepts to the Master's recommendation concerning the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Master concluded, among other things, that an administrative application for the Refuge was insufficient to "set apart" submerged lands within the proposed boundaries. As a result, the Master concluded, submerged lands within the Refuge passed to Alaska at statehood.

We consider these exceptions in turn.

II

By applying the Submerged Lands Act to Alaska through the Alaska Statehood Act, see Pub. L. 85-508, § 6(m), 72 Stat. 343 (1958), Congress granted the State title to submerged lands beneath a 3-mile belt of the territorial sea, measured from the State's "coast line." 43 U. S. C. §§ 1301(a)(2), 1311(a). The Act defines the term "coast line" as "the line of ordinary low water along that portion of the coast which is in direct contact with the open sea and the line marking the seaward limit of inland waters." § 1301(c). Alaska's first exception requires us to consider how the presence of barrier islands along its northern shore affects the delimitation of its coastline. The issue is of primary relevance in the Beaufort Sea, between the National Petroleum ReserveAlaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A joint federal-state sale of mineral leases covering this so-called Leased Area, conducted in December 1979, yielded large sums now held in escrow awaiting the outcome of this suit.

In cases in which the Submerged Lands Act does not expressly address questions that might arise in locating a coastline, we have relied on the definitions and principles of the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, Apr. 29, 1958, [1964] 15 U. S. T. 1606 (Convention). See United States v. California, 381 U. S. 139, 165 (1965) (California II). Specifically, the coastline from which a State measures its Submerged Lands Act grant corresponds to the "baseline" from which the United States measures its territorial sea under the Convention. The Government argued before the Special Master that the United States measures its territorial sea from a "normal baseline" -the lowwater line along the coast, Art. 3, supplemented by closing lines drawn across bays and mouths of rivers, see Arts. 7, 13. Under Article 10(2) of the Convention, each island has its own belt of territorial sea, measured outward from a baseline corresponding to the low-water line along the island's coast.

Although the United States now claims a territorial sea belt of 12 nautical miles, see Presidential Proclamation No. 5928, 3 CFR 547 (1988 Comp.), note following 43 U. S. C. § 1331, we are concerned in this case only with the 3-mile belt of the territorial sea that determines a State's Submerged Lands Act grant. Under Article 6 of the Convention, the outer limit of that territorial sea belt is a line every point of which is three miles from the nearest point of the baseline. This means of measuring the outer limit of the belt is also known as the "arcs-of-circles" method.

Alaska objected to application of the Article 3 "normal baseline" approach to its Arctic Coast. In the Leased Area of the Beaufort Sea, some offshore islands are more than six miles apart or more than six miles from the mainland. If Alaska owns only those offshore submerged lands beneath each 3-mile belt of territorial sea, the United States will own "enclaves" of submerged lands, wholly or partly surrounded by state-owned submerged lands, beneath waters more than three miles from the mainland but not within three miles of an island. Two such federal enclaves exist in the Leased Area between the mainland and the Flaxman Island chain, beneath the waters of Stefansson Sound. To eliminate these enclaves, Alaska offered alternative theories for determining the seaward limit of its submerged lands in the vicinity of barrier islands. Alaska principally contended that the United States should be required to draw "straight baselines" connecting the barrier islands and to measure the territorial sea from those baselines. Article 4 of the Convention permits a nation to use straight baselines to measure its territorial sea "[i]n localities where the coast line is deeply indented and cut into, or if there is a fringe of islands along the coast in its immediate vicinity." The parties agree that Alaska's coastline satisfies this description. Under this approach, waters landward of the baseline would be treated as "inland" waters, and Alaska would own all submerged lands beneath those waters.

The Master rejected this approach, finding that the use of straight baselines under Article 4 is permissive, not mandatory, and that the decision whether to use straight baselines is normally one for the Federal Government. Report of the Special Master 45 (hereinafter Report). The United States has never opted to draw straight baselines under Article 4. See California II, supra, at 167-169; United States v. Louisiana, 394 U. S. 11, 72-73 (1969) (Louisiana Boundary Case); United States v. Louisiana, 470 U. S. 93, 99 (1985) (Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case); United States v. Maine, 475 U. S. 89, 94, n. 9 (1986) (Massachusetts Boundary Case). As a variant of its straight baselines argument, Alaska claimed that the United States has historically treated waters between the mainland and fringing islands as "inland waters," so long as the openings between the offlying islands are no more than 10 miles wide. Alaska did not argue that the United States had ever specifically asserted, in its dealings with foreign nations, that the waters of Stefansson Sound are inland waters. Rather, Alaska attempted to identify a general but consistent "10-mile rule" invoked by the United States in its domestic and international affairs. If applied to Alaska's Arctic Coast, the State argued, this rule would require treating the waters of Stefansson Sound as inland waters.

The Master examined the boundary delimitation practices of the United States and concluded that the United States did not have a well-established rule for treating waters between the mainland and fringing islands as inland waters. The Master recognized that, in the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case, we suggested that between 1903 and 1961 the United States had "enclos[ed] as inland waters those areas between the mainland and off-lying islands that were so closely grouped that no entrance exceeded 10 geographical miles." 470 U. S., at 106-107. Observing that this statement was not "strictly necessary" to the decision in the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case, the Master declined to rely on it here. The Master therefore concluded that, for purposes of measuring Alaska's submerged lands, the State's coastline should correspond to a normal baseline under Article 3 of the Convention.

For the reasons discussed below, we find no error in the Master's approach.

A

Under the Convention, a nation's past boundary delimitation practice is relevant in a narrow context: specifically, when a nation claims that certain waters are "historic" inland waters under Article 7(6) of the Convention. If certain geographic criteria are met, Article 7(4) of the Convention permits a nation to draw a "closing line" across the mouth of a bay and to measure its territorial sea outward from that line. Waters enclosed by the line are considered internal waters. Article 7(6) also permits a nation to enclose "historic" bays, even if those waters do not satisfy the geographic criteria of Article 7(4). For a body of water to qualify as a historic bay, the coastal nation "must have effectively exercised sovereignty over the area continuously during a time sufficient to create a usage and have done so under the general toleration" of the community of nations. Id., at 102 (citing Juridical Regime of Historic Waters, Including Historic Bays 56, U. N. Doc. A/CNA/143 (1962)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, where a State within the United States wishes to claim submerged lands based on an area's status as historic inland waters, the State must demonstrate that the United States: (1) exercises authority over the area; (2) has done so continuously; and (3) has done so with the acquiescence of foreign nations. See Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case, supra, at 101-102.

Recognizing these strict evidentiary requirements, Alaska does not contend that the waters of Stefansson Sound are historic inland waters. Alaska does not purport to show any specific assertion by the United States that the waters of Stefansson Sound are inland waters. Rather, Alaska argues that, at the time it was admitted to the Union, the United States had a general, publicly stated policy of enclosing as inland waters areas between the mainland and closely grouped fringing islands. If this general formula is applied to the Alaska's Arctic Coast, the State argues, the waters of Stefansson Sound qualify as inland waters. Alaska maintains that this policy was in effect from the early 1900's to 1971, when the United States published a set of charts strictly applying the arcs-of-circles method to Stefansson Sound. In Alaska's view, relying solely on the Convention's normal baseline approach to delimit the State's submerged lands impermissibly contracts the State's recognized territory from that which existed at the time of statehood.

Since adopting the Convention's definitions to give content to the Submerged Lands Act, we have never sustained a State's claim to submerged lands based solely on an assertion that the United States had adhered to a certain general boundary delimitation practice at the time of statehood. In the Louisiana Boundary Case, we left open the possibility that Louisiana could claim ownership of certain submerged lands by demonstrating a "firm and continuing international policy" of enclosing waters between the mainland and island fringes as "inland waters." 394 U. S., at 74, n. 97. Had that been the United States' "consistent official international stance," the Government "arguably could not abandon that stance solely to gain advantage in a lawsuit to the detriment of Louisiana." Ibid. In that litigation, the State ultimately failed to demonstrate any firm and continuing international policy of enclosing waters behind island fringes as inland waters. See United States v. Louisiana, 420 U. S. 529, 529530 (1975) (per curiam) (decree) (accepting Master's recommendation that certain actions by the United States did not establish a general policy of applying straight baselines to near-fringing islands); Report of Special Master in United States v. Louisiana, O. T. 1974, No.9 Orig., pp. 7-13. Alaska nevertheless claims that in the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case the Court identified a "firm and continuing" 10-mile rule for fringing islands. Alaska first contends that the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case precludes the Government from claiming that the waters of Stefansson Sound are not inland waters. The State then argues in the alternative that independent evidence supports its formulation of the rule. We address Alaska's points in turn.

B

In the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case, the Court considered the States' claim that the waters of Mississippi Sound constituted "historic" inland waters under Article 7(6) of the Convention. In discussing whether the States had shown that the United States had continuously asserted the inland water status of Mississippi Sound, the Court identified a general policy "of enclosing as inland waters those areas between the mainland and off-lying islands that were so closely grouped that no entrance exceeded 10 geographical miles." 470 U. S., at 106.

Alaska argues that the Government is estopped from questioning application of this general coastline delimitation practice to its Arctic Coast. Alaska recognizes the rule that the doctrine of nonmutual collateral estoppel is generally unavailable in litigation against the United States, see United States v. Mendoza, 464 U. S. 154, 160-163 (1984), but suggests that the policy considerations underlying this rule do not apply to cases arising under the Court's original jurisdiction, where the Court acts as factfinder and the United States has an incentive to fully litigate all essential issues.

We have not had occasion to consider application of nonmutual collateral estoppel in an original jurisdiction case, and we see no reason to develop an exception to Mendoza here. Even if the doctrine applied against the Government in an original jurisdiction case, it could only preclude relitigation of issues of fact or law necessary to a court's judgment. Montana v. United States, 440 U. S. 147, 153 (1979); Mendoza, supra, at 158. A careful reading of the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case makes clear that the Court did not attach controlling legal significance to any general delimitation formula.

The Master in that case recited a series of statements and precedents following Mississippi's admission to the Union supporting the view that the Federal Government had treated the waters of Mississippi Sound as inland waters. These statements included multiple references to a rule for closing gulfs, bays, and estuaries with mouths less than 10 miles wide as inland waters, Report of Special Master in Al abama and Mississippi Boundary Case, O. T. 1983, No.9 Orig., pp. 40, 42, 48-49, 52, and to a rule for closing straits leading to inland waters, id., at 42, 49-50. In addition, the Master cited a 1961 letter from the Solicitor General to the Director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey concerning coastline delimitation principles for the Gulf of Mexico, proposing to treat" '[w]aters enclosed between the mainland and offiying islands… so closely grouped that no entrance exceeds ten miles'" as inland waters. Id., at 52.

In excepting to the Master's conclusion that the waters of Mississippi Sound qualified as historic inland waters, the United States argued that the "generalized… formulations" recited by the Master could not support the States' claim, without evidence of specific federal claims to inland waters status for Mississippi Sound. Exceptions of United States in Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case, O. T. 1983, No. 9 Orig., pp. 32-33. The Court assumed that the United States' position was correct, but concluded that the States had in fact identified "specific assertions of the status of [Mississippi] Sound as inland waters." 470 U. S., at 107; see id., at 108-110.

In light of the Court's assumption that specific assertions of dominion would be critical to the States' historic title claim, we cannot conclude that any general delimitation policy identified in the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case is controlling here. The Court's inquiry in the Alabama and Mississippi Boundary Case was not whether the States had demonstrated a "firm and continuing international policy" of enclosing waters between the mainland and island fringes as inland waters, sufficiently well defined to cover the waters of Mississippi Sound. Rather, the inquiry was whether the States had demonstrated that the Sound met the specific requirements for a historic inland waters claim under Article 7(6) of the Convention. In the context of that claim, the variation or imprecision in the United States' general boundary delimitation principles might have been irrelevant because the State could point to specific federal assertions that Mississippi Sound consisted of inland waters. But variation and imprecision in general boundary delimitation principles become relevant where, as here, a State relies solely on such principles for its claim that certain waters were inland waters at statehood. The United States is therefore free to argue that any 10-mile rule is not sufficiently well defined to support Alaska's claim that the waters of Stefansson Sound constitute inland waters.

C

Alaska argues that even if principles of collateral estoppel do not apply, the evidence before the Master established that the United States had a well-defined, "firm and continuing" 10-mile rule that would require treating certain areas along Alaska's Arctic Coast as inland waters. The Master exhaustively cataloged documents and statements reflecting the United States' views and practices on boundary delimitation, both in its international relations and in disputes with various States, between 1903 and 1971. The Master found that "the exact nature of the United States' historic practice is a matter of some intricacy," and concluded that any 10-mile rule was not sufficiently well defined to require treating the waters of Stefansson Sound as inland waters. Report 55. Alaska argues that the Master afforded "undue significance to minor variations in the way the United States expressed its otherwise consistent policy over time, ignoring the prin ciple that minor uncertainties and even contradictions in a nation's practice are legally insignificant." Exceptions of State of Alaska 14 (Alaska Exceptions Brief). The relevant sources do not bear out Alaska's claim.

Of particular importance for our analysis is the position of the United States in its foreign relations between 1930 and 1949. In March 1930, the United States formally proposed certain principles for delimiting inland waters to the League of Nations Conference for the Codification of International Law. See 3 Acts of the Conference for the Codification of International Law, Territorial Waters 195-201 (1930) (Acts of the Conference). As the Geographer of the Department of State later observed, where the mainland and offshore islands are assigned individual 3-mile belts of territorial sea, there will remain "small pockets of the high sea deeply indenting territorial waters." U. S. Exh. 85-223 (Boggs, Delimitation of the Territorial Sea, 24 Am. J. Int'l L. 541, 552 (1930)). Because such pockets would "constitute no useful portion of the high sea from the viewpoint of navigation," ibid., the United States proposed that countries "assimilate" these small enclaves of high seas to the adjacent territorial sea where a single straight line of no more than four nautical miles in length would enclose an enclave, 3 Acts of the Conference 201. At the same Conference, the United States also proposed a rule for straits. Where a strait connected "two seas having the character of high seas," the waters of the strait would be considered territorial waters of the coastal nation, as long as both entrances of the strait were less than six nautical miles wide. Id., at 200. Where a strait was "merely a channel of communication with an inland sea," rules regarding closing of bays would apply. Id., at 201. Under those rules, waters shoreward of closing lines less than 10 nautical miles in length would be treated as "inland" waters. Id., at 198.

The United States' 1930 "assimilation" proposal is inconsistent with Alaska's assertion that, since the early 1900's, the United States had followed a firm and continuing 10-mile rule for fringing islands. If the United States' policy had been to draw a baseline connecting islands no more than 10 miles apart, all waters between that line and the mainland would have been treated as "inland waters." Under the 1930 formula, however, there were "small pockets of the high sea" between that line and the mainland, and those pockets would have been assimilated to territorial waters (that is, waters seaward of the coastline), not to inland waters (that is, waters enclosed by the coastline). Alaska now argues that the 1930 assimilation proposal "was at most one of the legally insignificant uncertainties or contradictions" rather than a change from a firm 10-mile rule. Alaska Exceptions Brief 25 (internal quotation marks omitted). Alaska took a different position before the Special Master, where it argued that the United States "unequivocally embraced the 'assimilation' practice as the official United States position" between 1930 and 1949. Brief for Alaska on Island Fringes 54, 60-61; see Alaska Exh. 85-63 (Memorandum of United States in Response to Request of Special Master in United States v. California, o. T. 1949, No. 11 Orig., p. 19); Alaska Exh. 85-82 (Aide-Memoire from the Department of State to the Government of Norway, Sept. 29,1949, pp. 4-5). Alaska cannot explain why the United States would have pointed to the assimilation formula as its official position between 1930 and 1949 if a 10-mile rule for islands was in effect during that time.

Nor does the United States' proposal on straits demonstrate a policy of connecting near-fringing islands with straight baselines of less than 10 miles. If the mainland and offshore islands form the two coasts of a strait, under the United States' proposal the strait would be treated as territorial waters (not inland waters) if it linked two areas of high seas. The distance between the fringing islands may have some bearing on whether those islands in fact form the coast of a strait, but not on whether the waters they enclose are territorial or inland waters. In other words, under the 1930 proposal, the character of the waters to which a strait leads, not the distance between the islands forming one coast of the strait, determines the character of the strait itself.

Rather than treating the mainland and a line connecting fringing islands as the two coasts of a strait, Alaska appears to view a passageway between two offshore islands, leading to the waters between the islands and the mainland, as a strait. With this geographic configuration in mind, Alaska argues that the proposal to apply a 10-mile bay-closing rule to a strait serving as a "channel of communication with an inland sea" is "fully consistent" with a 10-mile rule. Alaska Exceptions Brief 25. But even under this approach, a rule that straits leading to an inland sea are themselves inland waters is not equivalent to a simple 10-mile rule. Again, under the United States' 1930 proposal, the character of the strait depends on the character of the waters to which it leads. A 10-mile bay-closing rule would apply only if the waters between the strait and the mainland were inland waters under some other principle. Under the simple 10-mile rule that Alaska advocates, the fact that the islands are less than 10 miles apart itself determines that the waters behind the islands are inland waters.

In sum, although Alaska is correct that the United States' position at the League of Nations Conference did not call for strict application of the arcs-of-circles method, ibid., neither the assimilation proposal nor the proposal for straits is fully consistent with a simple rule that islands less than 10 miles apart enclose inland waters.

The discussion above leads to the conclusion that, if the United States had a 10-mile rule at Alaska's statehood, that rule developed after 1949. Even if a rule developed within a decade of Alaska's statehood could be considered a "firm and continuing" one, Alaska has not shown that any such rule would encompass the islands off its Arctic Coast. For the period between 1950 and Alaska's statehood, Alaska fo cuses principally on the United States' position in a series of disputes with States over ownership of submerged lands in the vicinity of near-fringing islands, rather than on positions taken in its international relations. First, in 1950, the State Department and the Justice Department proposed a boundary between Louisiana's inland and territorial waters for use in the Louisiana Boundary Case. That boundary, known as the Chapman Line, followed certain barrier islands along Louisiana's southeast coast, enclosing Chandeleur and Breton Sounds and Calliou Bay as inland waters. According to Alaska, the Chapman Line shows the use of a simple 10mile rule