This contribution concerns the normative controversy and normative prospects of compulsory pilotage in the Torres Strait. In particular, it somewhat provocatively asserts that over the last several years we have been witnessing international law in the making in the Torres Strait. Alternatively (or even at the same time perhaps), it may be that we are witnessing the start of the passage of time necessary to work an extinctive prescription of potential claims through preclusion. If we look at navigation through the Torres Strait since 2006, when pilotage became compulsory under Australian law, there is a wide gulf between what some states have said about the law and what they and the vast majority of silent others have done in practice. The actual practice of states in the Torres Strait seems to point to a developing local or special custom of compulsory pilotage, even if it is accepted that there may be some persistent objectors. Similarly, for parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the practice of compulsory pilotage may be having influence on the ambit of the meaning of transit passage through the Torres Strait under Part III of the Convention.