# Is it legal to have a Viking-style burial at sea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 25, 2004, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-have-a-viking-style-burial-at-sea/266025 "2004-09-25T10:41:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-have-a-viking-style-burial-at-sea/266025/41 "2004-09-30T23:35:07Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > Trebuchet of the Dead. Band name !!! 😃 And, where there’s a [Will…](http://www.seaservices.com/), there’s a way. It is in fact [12 Nautical Miles](http://www.state.gov/www/global/oes/oceans/fs_oceans_los.html), to wit: > [@](#): > > …United States oceans policy has always had as a basic objective the application of the rule of law to the uses and conservation of the oceans. The United States was a leader in the international community’s effort to develop an over-all legal framework for the oceans in the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, which began its substantive work in 1974. > > The resulting United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), concluded in 1982, provides a comprehensive legal framework governing uses of the oceans and the rights and obligations of States relating thereto. It achieved consensus on the nature and extent of jurisdiction that States may exercise off their coasts: a territorial sea of a maximum breadth of 12 nautical miles and coastal State jurisdiction over fisheries and other resources (e.g., oil and gas) in a 200 nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and on the continental shelf where it extends beyond the EEZ. It balances extended coastal State jurisdiction with provision for preservation and elaboration of rights of navigation and overflight in these areas and guarantees of passage through and over straits used for international navigation and archipelagoes… Although here we see there is an additional [12 miles tacked on](http://www.state.gov/www/global/oes/oceans/fs_oceans_los.html) for good measure. > [@](#): > > …Beyond the 12 nautical mile limit there was a further 24 nautical mile limit, the ‘contiguous zone’, in which area a state could continue to enforce laws regarding activities such a smuggling … Speaking of scuttling ships on purpose, the [Largest single-day scuttling of ships](http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/scuttle.html) happened almost 100 years ago. Me, I plan to be cremated and have my ashes sprinkled in the Schuylkill River. 😉 Cartooniverse [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-have-a-viking-style-burial-at-sea/266025.md?page=2)