On April 10, 2019, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea issued its judgment in The M/V “Norstar” Case (Panama v. Italy), finding that Italy violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and awarded Panama $285,000 with interest to compensate for the loss of the M/V “Norstar.” The case concerns Italy’s detention of the Panamanian-flagged vessel the M/V “Norstar” after Italy requested that Spanish authorities seize the vessel while it was anchored in Spain in connection with allegations against eight individuals for smuggling and tax evasion. The Tribunal found that Article 87 (freedom of the high seas) of UNCLOS was applicable to the current situation and noted that “even when enforcement is carried out in internal waters, article 87 may still be applicable and be breached if a State extends its criminal and customs laws extraterritorially to activities of foreign ships on the high seas and criminalizes them.” The Tribunal went on to find that “Italy, by extending its criminal and customs laws to the high seas, by issuing the Decree of Seizure, and by requesting the Spanish authorities to execute it—which they subsequently did—breached the freedom of navigation which Panama, as the flag State of the M/V ‘Norstar’, enjoyed under that provision.”