UNCLOS Article 95

UNCLOS Article 95 grants warships on the high seas complete immunity from the jurisdiction of any state other than the flag state. A foreign warship cannot be boarded, arrested, searched, or subjected to another state’s enforcement on the high seas; it answers only to its own flag. The immunity underpins the right of visit regime in Article 110, which lets a warship board suspect merchant vessels but never another warship, and it parallels Article 96, which extends the same immunity to ships owned or operated by a state and used only on government non-commercial service.