Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Neither party takes issue with our holding in Central R. Co. that the "boundary line" between the States established in Article First is the line of sovereignty and that Ellis Island is on New Jersey's side of this line.3 The States also agree that Article Second carves out an exception to the boundary provision as to all of the islands existing at the time of the Compact, including Ellis Island. They agree that the recognition in this Article of "present jurisdiction" over Ellis Island suffices to bar any rival claim by New Jersey over the original portion of the Island. New York's contention is that Article Second also provides for its authority over filled land; New Jersey says it does not.
New York concedes that at the time of the Compact the submerged land around the Island was under the sovereign authority of New Jersey. But New York argues that because the Compact recognized its own sovereign authority over "Ellis Island," without describing that land mass in metes and bounds, the recognition of sovereignty extended to whatever area the Island so called might be enlarged to cover; that is, once any submerged territory was filled and became fast land contiguous to the original Island, it became subject to the New York sovereignty recognized in Article Second. New York rests its position on an allegation that in 1834 adding landfill to subaqueous land adjacent to fast land in New York Harbor was such a common practice as to render it unnecessary to mention it in Article Second of the Compact or otherwise make provision for its legal consequences. New York also argues that the parties who agreed
3 New York's amici New York Historical Society et al. and New York Landmarks Conservancy et al. would indeed take issue, arguing that the Compact's terms "jurisdiction" and "property" as variously employed in Articles Second and Third should be read to preclude the New Jersey claim. But without even relying on stare decisis we must pass over the arguments of the named amici for the reason that New York, the party to the case, has in effect renounced them, or at least any benefit they might provide. Accordingly, nothing in this opinion is meant to disparage the scholarship those briefs embody.
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