I. Introduction
The Trump administration is moving to reestablish a 19th-century maritime institution that has fallen into disuse: the prize court, a special-purpose tribunal for speedily determining the legality of the seizure and forfeiture of an enemy merchant vessel. As Figure 1 shows, the American legal framework for a prize court hasn’t been tested since World War II, and only rarely after 1900; but dusty as it may be, the Trump administration sees it as a way to circumvent the delay-prone appeals process of the civil court system, according to Bloomberg. [1]
Reviving prize courts, which is expected to face legal challenges, is intended to strengthen the blockade of Iran and offset the cost of the conflict with Iran.
Figure 1: Prize court (source: Wikipedia)
Aaron Reitz, the Houston-based US attorney whose office is partnering with department headquarters on the initiative, confirmed that the Department of Justice is “now reviving” prize courts, which he described as an “ancient body of maritime law.” [2]
The unfinalized plans, if adopted, would offer a faster path for federal prosecutors to claim oil and other cargo taken from enemy or neutral vessels as US property. The seized goods would then be sold with proceeds transferred to the treasury.
“Our national security interests may require the US military to seize vessels or cargo supporting the enemy during military conflict,” Reitz said in a statement. “If that happens, our federal courts must be ready to adjudicate the disposition of these captured vessels and cargo.” [3]
With this information, this paper attempts to analyze what prize courts are and why the Trump administration is moving to reestablish a 19th-century maritime institution.
II. What are prize courts?
1. Overview
2026 has not been a peaceful year. Armed conflicts continue to wage across the world, with several of the most high-profile conflicts plunging the global economy into a state of crisis or otherwise posing direct threats to the rights of states not party to the conflict. More specifically, the re-emergence of blockades as a commonplace method of naval and economic warfare has put the historic tension between the rights of belligerent and neutral states back into the fore of international practice. The nearly 19-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza, the Russian blockade of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, the US blockade of Venezuela, and now the US blockade and the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz have reintroduced the law of blockade back into the mainstream of international law. With the exception of Israel, none of these states have operated prize courts in connection with their respective blockades.
Although an obscure relic of the pre-Charter era today, prize courts were at one time seen as the most important part of the law of nations. Prize courts were judicial mechanisms embedded within domestic courts which had jurisdiction over declaring whether enemy or neutral vessels captured running blockades, transporting contraband, or providing ‘unneutral service’ could be condemned, thereby transferring title to the vessel to the capturing state. If the capture of the vessel adhered to relevant legal rules, chiefly those governing the law of neutrality, naval warfare, and any bilateral treaties applicable between the capturing and flag states, the vessel was deemed to be a ‘good prize’. If these rules were not adhered to by the capturing state, the vessel should be released. Being embedded in the legal systems of each state, however, prize courts often applied differing interpretations of the law of nations, depending on the approach taken by their respective states and legal systems.
2. Meaning and Purpose
A Prize Court is a judicial body established by a belligerent state to determine the legality of captures made at sea during armed conflict. It decides whether captured ships and cargoes are lawful prizes or must be released. Prize law thus forms the judicial mechanism for enforcing the law of blockade and maritime warfare.
3. Jurisdiction and Procedure
Prize courts are national courts, not international tribunals. They derive their authority from national legislation but must follow customary international law.
The captured vessel is brought to a port of the capturing state, where the court determines: [4]
- Whether the capture was lawful.
- Whether the goods were contraband.
- Whether neutral rights were violated.
If the seizure is upheld, the vessel and goods become property of the capturing state; if not, they are released and compensation may be awarded.
4. Basis of Jurisdiction
Prize courts operate on the principle of jurisdiction over the res(thing) — meaning the captured vessel or goods must be physically within the court’s control. [a]
5. Key Functions
- Determine legality of capture under international law.
- Protect neutral trade and ensure compliance with blockade rules.
- Prevent arbitrary or excessive seizure by naval forces.
- Enforce rights related to contraband, enemy property, and breach of blockade.
6. Contraband and Blockade in Prize Adjudication
Prize courts often examine whether goods constitute contraband — items useful for war such as weapons, ammunition, and military supplies.
Under the London Declaration (1909), contraband was classified as:
- Absolute contraband (military use only),
- Conditional contraband (civilian or military use), and
- Free goods (purely civilian).
If a neutral vessel carries contraband knowingly to the enemy, it may be seized and condemned. [b]
7. Pros and Cons
Supporters describe prize law’s benefits of expediting the process of transferring the proceeds from oil tanker cargo into the US treasury. The move may also send a global signal of President Donald Trump’s intent to add a legal enforcement mechanism to bolster the US blockade.
“It helps offset the price of the war,” said Eugene Kontorovich, an international law professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law. “It also shows Iran that America is really treating this as a serious international blockade and is willing to use all the tools at its disposal.”
If established, however, the approach would invite legal challenges as to whether the US is engaged in hostilities that give rise to the Prize Act and whether the lack of congressional authorization of the conflict renders captures unlawful.
Jill Goldenziel, a law professor who trains US military leaders at the National Defense University, warned of potential blowback in an April Forbes column.
Although it would “send a strong message to non-sanctioned, neutral merchant ships bound for Iranian ports not to violate the U.S. blockade,” Goldenziel wrote, it “could also open the door for China to apply prize law against the United States — a dangerous proposition for U.S. and neutral merchants in any war with China.”
III. Prize law in major countries
1. English Prize Law
Historically and today, admiralty courts typically entertain lawsuits — historically called libels — brought against a vessel itself. Once the admiralty suit has begun, the admiralty court issues an arrest warrant against the vessel, and an agent of the admiralty court goes to physically arrest the vessel. The court then begins its procedures to announce the lawsuit, to ensure that creditors are put on notice, and justice slowly but inexorably grinds forward. But it is the arrest and taking custody of the vessel that is the hallmark of initiating an admiralty suit. [5]
English admiralty courts began with a High Court of Admiralty (one each in London and Scotland), which devolved into local, subordinate admiralty courts to try cases, with appeals still running to the High Court of Admiralty. Considering the hallmark requirement of a vessel arrest, England’s early system worked well enough for local disputes into the mid-seventeenth century. At the time, many English admiralty cases were litigated over ships anchored in the pool of London, a stone’s throw from the heart of the capital itself.
However, arresting and adjudicating a vessel in distant waters was more challenging. With a burgeoning empire and attendant worldwide shipping, admiralty disputes arose in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and eventually in the American colonies. If the High Court of Admiralty itself were the sole forum to adjudicate each admiralty case, the cost and delays of such litigation — principally, sailing home for the pleasure of a contested trial — would delay justice and deter claimants. Therefore, the English system of admiralty and prize courts relaxed gradually over the 1600s, so that by 1693 prizes could be sent even to neutral ports for adjudication, and subordinate “Vice Admiralty Courts” were established at the edges of the English empire, including its colonies and in the Mediterranean. [6]
As the English admiralty devolved its power to remote vice admiralty courts, common law attorneys in England staked their claim to prosecute maritime disputes arising in English home waters. As early as 1604, common law judges denied admiralty jurisdiction to adjudicate a vessel collision case occurring in the Thames. By the time of the Stuart Restoration in the late 1600s, river and harbor cases were routinely retained by the common law courts, and only collisions in the open sea were routinely left to the admiralty. A consensus emerged by the 1750s that collision cases from the Thames or indeed any navigable river in England would be heard in the civil courts, and admiralty cases were limited to disputes arising on the high seas.
Like the relevant courts, the English practice of awarding prize money evolved over the centuries. Before the advent of a national navy, early English history records the crown contracting “the keeping of the seas” by private sea captains. This private contracting for naval warfare evolved into the practice of privateering, where the privateer split the value of a prize among its captain and crew, with a portion to the crown. As a standing navy came into existence and evolved, so too did the practice of dividing prize money among the warship’s captain and crew, again with portions also set aside for the admiral or the crown. A privateer’s division of prize money was typically controlled by a contract between the vessel owner and the privateer captain, and the prize courts typically did not intrude on this private contractual matter.
The English system of prize money was an express incentive for a ship — naval or privateer — to prey upon the state’s enemies. It is therefore perhaps no surprise that the English government would often intervene in prize court adjudications. One glaring example of government interference was with Judge Bullock, who arrived in Jamaica in 1758. Soon after his arrival, word spread that Bullock had been ordered to condemn all ships under the Dutch flag.
Consistent with his condemnation of the Dutch ships, Judge Bullock explained that, as an officer of the crown, he was duty-bound to increase crown revenues — apparently regardless of the merits of any particular case.
The quick demise of Judge Bullock’s judicial career in Jamaica shows the risk of countervailing local concerns. By 1759, the year after he arrived in Jamaica, Judge Bullock was suspended. This time, however, the cause of his trouble was for failing to follow directions from government officials. When the vessel Flag of Truce was before Judge Bullock, a Royal Navy admiral wrote to the judge to instruct him on the admiral’s preferred outcome. Considering how Judge Bullock had been openly partisan for the crown just the year before, the admiral may have understandably believed his recommendation would be followed, the case would come out to the admiral’s liking, and no one would find out about his intervention. [7]
The exact opposite happened. Judge Bullock commented on the admiral’s letter during a court proceeding, naming the admiral publicly. He did the exact opposite of the admiral’s advice, and instead acquitted the Flag of Truce traders, which meant that no prize money would be awarded. For the political sin of consistently needling the local monied interests (whether by following or ignoring governmental meddling), the lieutenant governor suspended Judge Bullock and installed a different judge in his stead.
The entire concept of a prize court ought to have taken the adjudications of prizes out of the political realm, insulating the government from domestic and international pressure by relying on impartial arbiters of fact and law. However, this cautionary tale of Judge Bullock highlights just how difficult it was for a government to control prize adjudications.
This inability to control prize outcomes sounds at first blush like a good result: it shows institutional independence and impartiality. But recall, however, that prizes are captured by force in the first instance, so the entire enterprise of prize money depended on a state of actual or impending hostilities. If a nation-state cannot direct its armed actors carrying out those hostilities, it cannot effectively pursue its strategic aims in the conflict.
As will be seen below, the French and early American governments had both successes and difficulties pursuing their strategic aims through the use of prize money.
2. French Prize Law
While France and England spent much of this period of 17-18th century at war, their regulation of privateering and the legal machinery of their respective prize courts were similar in many respects.
There were some noteworthy differences. French law generally forbade taking of prizes without a commission from the French admiralty. Like the identical English requirement for a commission or letter of marque, this rule was intended to keep governmental control over the private use of force against the state’s enemies. And like any good rule, it was proven by its occasional exception. For example, a particularly daring merchant captain who repelled an attacking vessel could turn the defense into an unexpected victory. In that rare instance, the French prize court could reward the merchant captain with the prize. [8]
The recapture of prizes was another point of moderate difference with French prize law. With many naval ships and privateers of several nations sailing the same waters, it frequently occurred that a prize would be captured by one country, only to then be captured again by a naval ship or privateer from a third country. With a small prize crew, a vanquished captive crew still onboard the prize, and a potentially absent or damaged initial victor, it is easy to see how recapture would be a tempting target for any sea captain.
English prize courts traditionally paid relatively little for a recapture. If an owner of a recaptured vessel paid a modest amount representing “salvage,” the owner would be entirely restored to their ownership rights. The effect of this was that recaptures were not particularly lucrative in English prize courts. By contrast, French prize courts adopted a twenty-four-hour rule. If recapture occurred within twenty-four hours of the initial capture, the victor was entitled to one-third the value of the recapture. If the recapture occurred more than twenty-four hours after the initial seizure, the French prize court would award the full value of the prize. It is not difficult to imagine how this significant difference in prize amounts might affect a captain’s decision on when to commence an attempt at recapture.
French regulation of privateers also varied from the English rules. French privateering rules date back to at least 1543. By 1681 the rules were relaxed to allow the essentially unfettered division of proceeds between a privateer crew and the shipowner, and in 1693 the law changed again to establish a maximum share for members of the crew depending on their rank. While English privateer crews typically took only their shares of prize money, French privateer crews typically drew a wage in addition to prize proceeds.
By the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, French prize courts evolved a distributed system of prize courts similar to the English vice admiralty courts. Those far-flung French fora developed local customs that varied considerably. For example, the governor of the Windward Islands in Martinique claimed to have achieved a mutually beneficial arrangement for the distribution of prize proceeds, as if advertising his relaxation of the previous standard scheme of distributions. In Bordeaux in 1762, an officer was criticized for his attempted intervention in the distribution of privateer prize money. The criticism observed that the various local customs in French admiralty courts resulted in some crews receiving as much as one-third of the value of a prize, while others received only a tenth.
These varying local customs seem to have resulted from the intervention of local officials, unmoored from any particular legal principle. These examples show that, as was true of Judge Bullock in English Jamaica, both English and French prize courts suffered from the intrigues of local officials looking after their own interests. With this loose regulation of armed conflict, it is perhaps not surprising that prize courts would provide a newly independent nation with an opportunity for confusion, mistrust, and ultimately conflict with an erstwhile ally
3. Early American Prize Law
In the United States today, each state is something of a mini-sovereign unto itself, for certain limited purposes. The California legislature sets its own laws, for example, about marriage and divorce, unemployment benefits, and insurance. Some areas of American law are written and enforced at the federal level, subject to enforcement across the nation. These nationwide laws include immigration, bankruptcy, and federal crimes, among others. This dichotomy of state as opposed to federal laws and enforcement is something of an accident of history, resulting from an attempt to respect the sovereignty of each of the original thirteen colonies when the people of those colonies entered into voluntary union under the U.S. Constitution.
Federal treatment of subjects like immigration and bankruptcy creates a nationwide standard. For example, an immigrant to the United States should be treated the same upon his/her attempted entry, regardless of which state happens to host the port of entry. Similar concerns apply to bankruptcy, patents, and, most relevant to this discussion, “all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction,” which the U.S. Constitution reserves for the federal courts. The development of American prize courts shows how that judicial power evolved in the Revolutionary and Federalist periods of American history.
England had established vice admiralty courts in the American colonies during the eighteenth century. In addition to prize adjudication, they also took up private disputes within the admiralty jurisdiction. Like typical admiralty courts, these colonial courts typically brought suit against the vessel or cargo itself, followed by an arrest of the property. Also typical of courts of admiralty, colonial vice admiralty courts did not utilize a jury. These colonial vice admiralty courts were very busy adjudicating captured French vessels during Seven Years War.
The advent of independent revolution between the colonies and England changed the legal landscape, which in turn affected the treatment of prizes in America. In order to harass the British, the Continental Congress and individual states commissioned both public and private vessels of war. Those ships inevitably captured prizes, which had to be adjudicated to maintain the formalities of prize awards and avoid the ready slander of being deemed a mere pirate.
From 1775 to 1780, the Continental Congress evolved a series of measures to handle prize proceedings, eventually settling on a “Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture.” Throughout this time, most of the states conducted prize trials in their own courts, whether set up as separate prize courts or in local civil courts. During the revolutionary period, a disappointed litigant could appeal a decision to the Continental Congress, initially in an ad hoc committee, then to a standing committee. The first such appeal happened to be filed on July 4, 1776 — the same day the Declaration of Independence was signed. This congressional appeal was replaced by the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture, which in turn was replaced by the nascent federal court system. In the federal court system, prize appeals — like all appeals — ran to the newly established U.S. Supreme Court as the highest court in the newly independent land.
Even in the midst of its revolution and governmental formation, the US entered into the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France in 1778. The French victory in the battle of the Capes left Cornwallis’s army trapped at Yorktown and led to the British surrender to George Washington. Newly independent, US’ shipping trade increased as the new nation tried to establish neutrality and avoid foreign entanglements. This was not to last.
By 1796, in the midst of its own revolutionary fervor and facing down the British, the French Directorate declared that French prize courts would treat captured neutral ships the same way that British prize courts treated neutrals from the same nation. This was troubling for two reasons. First, British prize courts at the time were skeptical of claims of neutrality, so by following British skepticism, the French prize courts were likely to impinge on neutral shipping rights. Second, given the delay in communications of the era, this declaration would allow French prize courts to do whatever they desired, leaving neutrals like Americans with no predictability in a French court. The next year, the Directory renounced key provisions of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and promulgated a list of reasons for which the French might condemn a neutral vessel.
The Americans and French traded allegations about irregularities in prize courts throughout the mid-1790s. French prize courts followed the Directory pronouncements and refused to let owners present a defense as was traditionally allowed.
Meanwhile, French privateers based themselves in neutral American ports. Consistent with an older tradition of neutral-port adjudication, those French privateers sailed their prizes into ports like Charleston for adjudication, whereupon British diplomats contested the resultant prize proceedings. This British prize litigation was costly, time-consuming, and almost uniformly against Britain.
At the height of the war in 1800, the U.S. Navy frigate Constellation captured the Charming Betsy on suspicion of carrying contraband. The Charming Betsy’s apparent owner, Jared Shattuck, was born in Connecticut, moved to the Danish possession of St. Thomas as an infant, married a Dane, and lived as a Danish subject. As with the disputes over neutral shipping that led to the Quasi-War, the lawfulness of arresting the Charming Betsy turned on neutral shipping rights. If Mr. Shattuck was an American citizen, then the vessel was subject to American law, arrest, and condemnation as lawful prize. If Mr. Shattuck was a Danish citizen, however, the Charming Betsy would be a neutral ship, and not lawful prize.
Without definitively ruling on the owner’s citizenship, the Supreme Court found that Mr. Shattuck “made himself the subject of a foreign power,” so “the Charming Betsy, with her cargo, being at the time of her recapture the bona fide property of a Danish burgher, is not forfeitable,” and the vessel was not lawful prize. The court ordered the case remanded to the trial court for a computation of damages that the captain of the Constellation owed to the shipowner, though US Congress later reimbursed the captain for those costs. By so ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the importance of neutral shipping rights that had led to the recent Quasi-War, while requiring American naval captains to honor those same neutrality principles — and risk violating neutrality at their personal financial peril. [9]
Another example arose in late 1799, when the American frigate Boston captured the Danish vessel Flying Fish. At the time, an act of congress authorized the seizure of any vessel suspected of commerce with France or its possessions, if the vessel was “bound or sailing to any port or place within the territory of the French Republic or its dependencies.” The Secretary of the Navy forwarded a copy of the act to the Boston, along with written instructions to seek out vessels “bound to or from French ports.” [10]
At the time of its seizure, Flying Fish was bound from a French port in Haiti to St. Thomas in what was then the Danish West Indies. The Supreme Court ruled that by arresting the Flying Fish while it was travelling from (but not to) a French port, the American captain went beyond the bounds of the act of Congress. The written orders from the naval secretary were no defense, because those “instructions cannot change the nature of the transaction, or legalize an act which without those instructions would have been a plain trespass.” As in the Charming Betsy case, the captain who wrongfully arrested the Flying Fish was also “answerable in damages to the owner of [the] neutral vessel.” By deciding the Flying Fish case this way, the Supreme Court again underlined the importance of American naval vessels making only lawful seizures, and that deviating from that requirement would be personally expensive for the errant captain.
IV. Contemporary Examples: The Estelle and Zaytouna-Olivia
In 2012, Israel was enforcing a blockade in the Mediterranean Sea to prevent resupply by sea of the Gaza Strip. Israel extended its blockade out to twenty nautical miles, which provided sufficient time to respond to and intercept any would-be blockade runner. The Israeli Navy had its chance when a Finnish sailing vessel named Estelle attempted to run the Israeli blockade. At the time, Estelle carried activists from several European nations who sailed for Gaza in a show of support for the Palestinians. As the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) closed, the Estelle was invited to proceed to the Israeli port of Ashdod rather than to its intended destination in Gaza. The Estelle refused to and continued on its intended course.
As warnings and requests were being ignored, the IDF sent a boarding party to enforce its blockade, forcibly taking possession of the Estelle and bringing it to Haifa. About ten months after capture, the Israeli government brought suit in the local district court to adjudicate the capture. Estelle’s owners appeared in court to challenge both its authority to make adjudications as a prize court, and the months-long delay in bringing the condemnation action.
On the theory that Israel had succeeded Great Britain after the disestablishment of British Palestine, the Haifa court ruled that England’s Naval Prize Act of 1864 applied to the vessel condemnation proceeding. The government did not fare so well on the claim of the delay in bringing the Estelle to trial, however, and the trial court ordered the ship released. In a 2016 appeal, the Israeli Supreme Court came to the same conclusions: applying admiralty law and international legal principles, the government’s delay in bringing the condemnation proceeding required the Estelle to be released immediately, with payment of costs to the owners. The high court opinion in The Estelle, however, left room for a different case, with different facts, to yield a different result. [11]
The Israeli government learned its lesson in the Estelle case. Just two months after that decision, the IDF seized the sailing vessel Zaytouna-Olivia which, like the Estelle, was attempting to break the Israeli blockade. The Haifa district court ultimately approved the seizure and in so doing affirmed Israel’s ability to properly capture vessels at sea. More broadly, the Zaytouna-Olivia and Estelle cases together affirm the ongoing applicability of prize law to cases of modern vessel capture.
V. Why does the Trump administration try to re-establish prize court?
The Trump administration is moving to revive long-dormant maritime “prize courts” through the Department of Justice (DOJ) primarily to streamline the military capture and liquidation of Iranian oil tankers.
The decision to leverage this centuries-old, Civil War-era body of law is driven by several strategic and legal objectives:
1. Bypassing slow civil litigation
Under standard practice, the U.S. government relies on civil forfeiture laws to seize ships and cargo linked to sanctions violations. However, civil forfeiture requires the government to prove a specific statutory violation in court and allows various third parties to intervene. The true advantage of the maritime prize court system is its streamlined procedure, which limits third-party involvement. In civil forfeiture litigation, multiple parties — such as families of victims of Iranian terrorism asserting claims against Iranian assets subject to forfeiture — can file lawsuits and delay the proceedings until a final judgment is reached. Meanwhile, the federal government must continue to bear the costs of maintaining the seized vessel (including insurance, wages, maintenance, and fuel). A swift sale is the best way to realize value from seized vessels and cargo, and maritime prize law offers a solution to this end.
For instance, in a recent case involving the seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker that was supporting Iran, the disposal process was delayed for months due to claims filed by shipping companies and families of terrorism victims. Prize courts significantly restrict third-party intervention, enabling the government to obtain a final judgment much more quickly.
2. Eliminating massive maintenance costs
When the U.S. government holds captured vessels during prolonged civil lawsuits, it must pay for the ongoing “carrying costs” — including ship maintenance, fuel, insurance, and crew wages. Because prize courts offer an accelerated legal pathway, the government can swiftly auction off the seized ship and oil, transferring the proceeds directly into the U.S. Treasury before racking up massive maintenance bills.
3. Lowering the burden of proof for seizures
Unlike civil law enforcement (typically handled by the Coast Guard), prize law allows the Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy to use military force to seize enemy vessels or neutral ships carrying enemy-bound cargo. Under prize authority, the military does not need a warrant or immediate proof of an existing domestic statutory violation; the seizure is adjudicated post-capture as an act of conflict.
4. Funding the conflict with Iran and Enforcing the Blockade
The administration intends to use the prize courts — envisioned to operate primarily out of the Southern District of Texas in Houston due to its massive oil infrastructure — to strengthen its active naval blockade against Iran. By selling the captured petroleum, the administration aims to directly offset the U.S. military expenditures associated with the ongoing conflict.
5. Weakening the Iran regime
There is a clear logic behind these moves of Trump administration to revive the prize court. The United States is seeking ways to make Iranian oil smuggling more costly and legally vulnerable, while weakening the Iranian regime’s influence. Instead of imposing sanctions on tankers or companies after the fact, the U.S. can use a reward tribunal strategy to seize cargo more quickly and turn Iran’s maritime activities into a financial burden. [12]
Iran reacted immediately to Trump’s move to revive the prize court. Iranian officials warned Washington not to use the system and stated they would take “serious and swift” action to make them pay a price commensurate with U.S. interests in the Gulf. These threats demonstrate that legal issues are also military issues. Court proceedings in Washington could trigger retaliatory attacks near U.S. military bases, maritime shipping lanes, or energy infrastructure.
For Israel, this issue of the prize court is critical. Iran’s oil revenues are used to maintain the backing of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels, Iraqi militias, and other hostile forces. Washington targeting this source of revenue carries significance beyond simply inflicting an economic blow on Tehran. It is about cutting off the funding sources for regional terrorist networks targeting Israel and US allies. [13]
VI. Conclusion and Implication
This paper aimed to analyze what kind of institution the prize court is and why the Trump administration is seeking to revive this 19th-century maritime institution. The paper argued that the prize court is a judicial body established to determine whether acts of seizure at sea by belligerents in dispute with other nations were lawful. Furthermore, the paper claimed there are five reasons why the Trump administration is seeking to revive the tribunal: first, to bypass slow civil litigation procedures; second, to reduce massive maintenance costs; third, to ease the burden of proof regarding seizures; fourth, to strengthen conflict financing and maritime blockades; and fifth, to weaken the Iranian regime.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s move to revive the prize court has significant implications regarding China. While China relies heavily on imports and exports ranging from raw materials to high-tech, it lacks the naval power to defend its maritime trade. China has benefited greatly from the long-standing efforts and commitment of the US and its partners to support free and open maritime trade. Recent events in the Red Sea are the latest example of this trend. Although developments in the Middle East pose a significant threat to its trade, China has nevertheless maintained an ambiguous stance regarding efforts to protect this critical maritime transport route.
This could present an opportunity for the US. US military projection capabilities would provide a favorable position to seize vessels linked to China in the event of a conflict. Significant flexibility can be secured because the types of vessels to be redeployed after seizure can vary depending on the course of the conflict. For example, if a conflict reveals a shortage of specific resources essential to China’s war industry, the United States could seize the vessels supplying those resources to further limit China’s ability to wage war. Alternatively, if the US loses critical maritime transport assets in an unfavorable engagement, it could seize suitable Chinese container ships to enhance its maritime transport assets and capabilities during the conflict. Furthermore, all of this can be done outside of China’s A2/AD zone. [14]
Seizing merchant vessels linked to China could be useful in a long-term conflict with China, a nuclear-armed state, but it must be done through legal procedures. As an advocate of the rules-based international order, the US must strive to uphold those principles even during war. Fortunately, the existing legal framework makes such efforts possible.
In recent years, U.S. strategists have examined the concept of the “prize law” as a key strategy to secure key maritime passages, particularly in the South China Sea or near Taiwan.
Under the prize law, which is recognized under domestic and international law, a country’s military can search enemy vessels and seize their cargo. According to James Kraska, a professor of international maritime law and director of the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College, if a U.S. domestic court determines that a capture is legal, the country concerned can acquire ownership of the captured vessel, aircraft, or cargo and convert it for its own use.
In an article contributed to the September 2024 issue of the U.S. Naval Research Institute’s monthly journal “Proceedings”, U.S. Marine Corps electronic warfare officer Major Ryan Ratcliffe wrote, “The Prize law could provide a means to seize merchant vessels linked to China in the event of a conflict. Because operations utilizing the prize law can be conducted almost anywhere in the world, the US can extend the U.S. military’s global power projection capabilities beyond China’s A2/AD (Access Denial/Area Blockade) zones.” [15]
Major Ratcliffe pointed out, “The cost of seizing vessels linked to China will outweigh the benefits of sustained combat in the long run.” At the same time, according to Major Ratcliffe, weakening China’s maritime trade could degrade its warfighting capabilities, thereby reducing the likelihood of sustained combat.
Ratcliffe wrote, “By leveraging its global military projection capabilities to pressure China to yield below the threshold of nuclear use, the United States can maintain its national power and restore free and open trade under a rules-based international order. By doing so, it will be able to ensure security and prosperity both domestically and internationally even after the war ends.” [16]
Because operations utilizing prize laws can be conducted almost anywhere in the world, U.S. military projection capabilities not only allow the U.S. to expand its operational area beyond China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) zones, but also provide the U.S. with various options, such as reinforcing maritime transport capabilities, securing scarce critical resources, or blocking China from meeting these requirements. All of these options underpin a hybrid victory strategy that blocks Chinese access and offsets military costs, and allow for flexible switching between individual options or combinations thereof. This flexibility allows the U.S. government to adjust the intensity of pressure, making it highly suitable for finding the optimal balance between effectiveness and escalating tensions.
In addition to finding the optimal point, operations utilizing the maritime prize law are highly suitable for managing the risk of escalation. Although it may imply a geographical expansion of the conflict, seizing merchant vessels linked to China using the maritime prize law is slower to deploy than many other methods of armed suppression, thereby providing the enemy’s decision-makers with more time to consider countermeasures.
Notes & Footnotes
References
