THE SEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS
NATURE GAVE TO ME
SEVEN
SEAS FOR TRADING
SIX SWIMMERS SWIMMING
FIVE GOLDEN
PEARS
FOUR SEASONS BRIGHT
THREE FAMILY
Two frontal
lobes
AND A BODY WITH LIFE AND
LIBERTY
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Why are the
Seven Seas a part of the Common Heritage of Humanity? Was it the great
sixteenth/seventeenth century legal scholar Grotius who first defined the
Common Heritage as it relates to the sea? In his words:
"God
himself says 'speaking through the voice of nature' inasmuch as it is not
His will to have Nature supply every place with all the necessaries of
life, He ordains that some nations excel in one art and others in another.
... So by the decree of divine justice it was brought about that one
people should supply the needs of another.
Those therefore who deny
this law, destroy this most praiseworthy bond of human fellowship, remove
the opportunities for doing mutual service, in a word do violence to
Nature herself. For do not the ocean, navigable in every direction, with
which God has encompassed all the earth, and the regular and the
occasional winds which blow now from one quarter and now from another
offer sufficient proof that Nature has given to all peoples a right of
access to all other peoples.