tokens: In the first two decades of the 20th century , there had been uncertainty as to whether a land-locked state could register maritime ships and authorise them to sail under its flag : France , the United Kingdom , and Germany had argued that such a right could not exist because it would place a land-locked state in the position of being unable to control the behavior of ships of bearing its flag because of the state 's inability to unreservedly access ports and the sea .