The defendants, on board El Senor Del Mar, were interdicted approximately 154 nm off the coast of El Salvador. The defendants faced alleged violations of the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA). The defendants filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the MDLEA was unconstitutional as applied to them because they were arrested in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of El Salvador and not 'on the high seas' as required by the MDLEA.

Held: Motion denied.

In MDLEA prosecutions, courts have repeatedly recognised that the high seas begin outside a country’s 12 nautical mile territorial waters, not outside the country’s EEZ. Although the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) defines 'high seas' as 'all parts of the sea that are not included in the exclusive economic zone, in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State', various articles of UNCLOS maintain the distinction between the EEZ and the high seas. In addition, almost all of UNCLOS’s high-seas provisions apply with equal force inside the EEZ as they do outside it. Therefore, the interdiction occurred on the high seas and the defendants’ motion to dismiss was denied.