During the 1960s, a wave of pirate radio stations hijacked abandoned World War II army forts located off the English coast to broadcast unauthorized rock and roll music to millions of British listeners. Stations like Radio Essex and Radio City set up shop on the Maunsell Forts, fixed steel platforms standing in international waters outside the UK's traditional three-mile territorial limit. Desperate to shut down these rogue broadcasters without creating legal loopholes, British authorities invoked ancient principles of maritime law, including the doctrine of hostis humani generis—enemies of all mankind—traditionally reserved for high-seas pirates and slave traders.
Governed by the premise that non-state actors operating outside territorial jurisdictions posed an existential threat to international order, government officials sought ways to extend national legislation to the sea structures. The UK legal team eventually navigated around international law by redrawing territorial boundaries under the 1964 Territorial Waters Order in Council, claiming the sandbanks beneath the forts fell within expanded sovereign waters. This allowed the prosecution of station operators under the Wireless Telegraphy Act without needing to prove actual high-seas piracy.
The high-stakes legal battle forever altered maritime boundaries, closed jurisdictional blind spots, and catalyzed the creation of the 1967 Marine Broadcasting Offences Act.