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Development of the concept The territorial sea is the first coastal State maritime zone seawards of the baseline and internal waters. We begin this chapter by tracing its development as a concept. 1 The questions of the status of the seabed underlying the territorial sea and of the airspace above it arose separately from the question of the status of the water column, and
The law of the sea is an up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of this branch of public international law. It begins by tracing the historical origins of the law of the sea and explaining its sources, notably the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This is followed by chapters examining the various maritime zones into which the sea is legally divided, namely internal waters, the territorial sea, archipelagic waters, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone, the high seas and the International Seabed Area. In each case the legal nature of the zone and its physical dimensions are analysed. Separate chapters deal with the baselines from which the breadths of most maritime zones are delineated and the law governing the delimitation of boundaries between overlapping maritime zones. Later chapters discuss how international law regulates the safety of navigation, fisheries and scientific research, and provides for protection of the marine environment from pollution and biodiversity loss. The penultimate chapter addresses the question of landlocked States and the sea. The final chapter outlines the various ways in which maritime disputes may be settled. Throughout the book detailed reference is made not only to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but also to other relevant instruments, the burgeoning case law of international courts and tribunals, and the academic literature.
Introduction The contiguous zone is a zone of sea contiguous to and seaward of the territorial sea, extending up to 24 miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS art. 33(2)). States are not obliged to maintain contiguous zones, as they are to maintain territorial seas; and unlike the continental shelf, the contiguous zone is
archipelagos 2 We saw in chapter two that every island generates a territorial sea and contiguous zone and that islands that are not ‘rocks’ within the meaning of article 121(3) of UNCLOS also generate all other maritime zones for which UNCLOS provides. In the case of an archipelago (that is, a group of islands), the question of whether this rule should apply, so that each island in an archipelago would
Introduction With the possible exception of one or two mid-ocean island States, the maritime zones that States may claim off their coasts (territorial sea, contiguous zone, EEZ and continental shelf) overlap, to a greater or lesser extent, with the maritime zones of one or more neighbouring States. It is common to characterise such neighbouring States as being either
Introduction As we will see in later chapters, a State may claim a variety of zones off its coast – territorial sea, contiguous zone, EEZ and continental shelf – in which it has rights that other States do not have. With the partial exception of the continental shelf, those zones have specified breadths, expressed in terms of nautical miles. The question then arises as to
Introduction The high seas comprise all parts of the sea that are not included in the exclusive economic zone, the territorial sea or internal waters of a State, or in the archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State (see further the section below addressing the ‘definition’ of the high seas). The legal regime of the high seas has traditionally been characterised by the
) and Iran (in relation to the Strait of Hormuz) are not parties to the 1982 Convention, the pre-UNCLOS rules will be first considered separately. The regime under customary law and the Territorial Sea Convention Under pre-1958 customary international law, and indeed under the 1958 TSC, the rights of passage through straits depended primarily upon
each other’s territorial waters. In 1990 the same states ratified a general multilateral treaty on jurisdiction in the territorial sea, which stipulated that states could determine for themselves whether fishermen from other states were allowed to fish in the territorial sea. From 1990 the two states began to check whether fishing boats actually came from
jurisdiction of a state extends over its territory, and is also called territorial jurisdiction. The territory includes: the land area; the inland waters; and the territorial sea. State jurisdiction also extends to the subsoil (including raw materials) and airspace associated with these territories