Maritime Zones, Exclusive Economic Zone and UNCLOS Provisions

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides the legal framework for classifying ocean spaces and the rights of coastal and other states over them. It lays down how maritime zones are measured from baselines and defines the scope of sovereignty, jurisdiction, and resource rights in each zone. For prelims, the key is to distinguish territorial sovereignty, resource rights, navigation freedoms, and the legal status of the high seas and seabed beyond national jurisdiction.

Baselines and Internal Waters

• Baselines: The starting line for measuring all maritime zones. They must be officially recognized by the coastal state and shown on large-scale charts.
• Normal baseline: Drawn along the low-water line of the coast.
• Straight baseline: Used where the coastline is deeply indented, cut into, or fringed by islands in its immediate vicinity.
• Archipelagic baseline: A special form used by archipelagic states such as Indonesia and the Philippines, joining the outermost points of the outermost islands.
• Internal waters: All waters landward of the baseline, including bays, ports, rivers, estuaries, and landlocked coastal lakes.
• Sovereignty: The coastal state exercises complete sovereignty over internal waters, similar to its land territory.
• Foreign vessels: They do not have an automatic right of innocent passage through internal waters, except where a straight baseline encloses waters not previously treated as internal waters.

Territorial Sea and Innocent Passage

• Territorial sea: Extends up to 12 nautical miles from the baseline.
• Conversion: 1 nautical mile (NM) = 1.852 km.
• Authority of the coastal state: Full sovereignty extends over the water column, seabed, subsoil, and superjacent airspace.
• Innocent passage: Foreign civilian and commercial ships may pass through the territorial sea if the passage is not prejudicial to the peace, good order, or security of the coastal state.
• Submarines and underwater vehicles: They must travel on the surface and show their flag while navigating the territorial sea.
• Exam point: Territorial sea is a sovereignty zone, but it is not an absolute exclusion zone because innocent passage is allowed.

Contiguous Zone

• Extent: Extends up to 24 nautical miles from the baseline, which is 12 nautical miles beyond the territorial sea.
• Nature of power: The coastal state does not have full sovereignty here.
• Purpose: It allows preventive and punitive control to enforce certain laws linked to the territory or territorial sea.
• Laws covered: Customs, fiscal, immigration, and sanitary laws.
• Key use: The zone helps the coastal state prevent or punish infringements that begin within its territory or territorial sea.

Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf

• Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ): Extends up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline, or 188 nautical miles beyond the outer limit of the territorial sea.
• Sovereign rights in EEZ: The coastal state has exclusive rights to explore, exploit, conserve, and manage natural resources.
• Living resources: Includes fisheries.
• Non-living resources: Includes oil, gas, and minerals.
• Energy rights: The coastal state may produce energy from water, currents, and winds.
• Jurisdiction in EEZ: Covers artificial islands, offshore installations, marine scientific research, and marine environmental protection.
• Rights of other states: Foreign states retain freedom of navigation, overflight, and laying of submarine cables and pipelines.
• Continental shelf: Comprises the seabed and subsoil of submarine areas extending beyond the territorial sea up to the outer edge of the continental margin.
• Minimum shelf entitlement: It exists at least up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline, even if the physical shelf is narrower.
• Extended Continental Shelf (ECS): If the geological continental margin extends beyond 200 nautical miles, a state may claim up to 350 nautical miles from the baseline, or up to 100 nautical miles from the 2,500-meter isobath.
• CLCS: Extended shelf claims must be submitted to and approved by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
• Resources on the shelf: The coastal state has exclusive sovereign rights over sedentary living species and non-living mineral resources of the seabed and subsoil.

High Seas and Flag-State Jurisdiction

• High seas: All parts of the sea not included in the EEZ, territorial sea, internal waters, or archipelagic waters of any state.
• Access: Open to all states, including landlocked states.
• Freedoms: Navigation, overflight, scientific research, construction of artificial installations, and fishing, subject to conservation obligations.
• Peaceful purposes: The high seas are reserved exclusively for peaceful purposes.
• Flag-state jurisdiction: Ships on the high seas are generally subject to the exclusive authority of the country whose flag they fly.

The Area and Common Heritage of Mankind

• The Area: Refers to the seabed, ocean floor, and subsoil beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.
• Legal status: Declared the Common Heritage of Mankind under Part XI of UNCLOS.
• Core principle: No state or entity can claim sovereignty or sovereign rights over any part of the Area or its resources.
• Practical significance: The Area is treated differently from zones under coastal state jurisdiction because it lies entirely beyond national ownership.
• Exam focus: Distinguish between the continental shelf, which may belong to a coastal state for resource rights, and the Area, which does not.

Key Prelims Takeaways

• UNCLOS: Adopted in 1982 and in force since 1994; it is the basic legal framework for ocean spaces.
• Baseline principle: All maritime zones are measured from officially recognized baselines.
• Internal waters: Complete sovereignty applies; there is no automatic right of innocent passage.
• Territorial sea: Extends up to 12 nautical miles; innocent passage is allowed for foreign ships.
• Contiguous zone: Extends up to 24 nautical miles; used for customs, fiscal, immigration, and sanitary enforcement.
• EEZ: Extends up to 200 nautical miles; the coastal state gets resource-related sovereign rights, while navigation and overflight remain open to others.
• Continental shelf and The Area: Shelf rights concern seabed and subsoil resources; the Area beyond national jurisdiction is the Common Heritage of Mankind.