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The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides guidelines for nations’ use of oceans. UNCLOS establishes limits for territorial waters, internal waters, and exclusive economic zones. The treaty is binding on signatory nations.
The law of the sea refers to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), sometimes referred to as the Law of the Sea Treaty or the Law of the Sea Convention. An international agreement that was established over the course of 10 years from 1973 to 1982, the Law of the Sea provides guidelines and laws for the world’s nations regarding their use of the world’s oceans. As with all UN treaties, the treaty is binding only on the nations that have signed the agreement – 161 as of 2011.
Historically, nations around the world could only claim a small area three miles (4.83 kilometers) off a nation’s border. The three-mile rule was based on the distance a cannonball would travel if fired from the ground. All waters not claimed by a nation were considered international waters. Given the vastness of the planet’s oceans, this has left a huge amount of “territory” unclaimed by any particular nation.
Eventually, nations began extending their claim to ocean waters as a way to protect potential natural resources, secure their borders, or control pollution among other justifications given. Some nations have extended their borders up to 200 nautical miles (370.4 kilometers). As it became clearer and clearer, an international consensus was needed on the issues presented by the planet’s waterways. The resulting UNCLOS was finally born in 1982 and ratified in 1994.
The resulting Law of the Sea Treaty addressed a number of issues, including how far each nation’s border may extend into the sea, when a nation may exclude foreigners from waterways outside its borders, and which rights a nation has over resources located in the oceans outside its borders. The agreement establishes limits measured from the baseline outside a nation’s borders, agreeing that the water on the landward side of the baseline is internal waters, while territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles (22.22 kilometers) from the baseline. Foreign vessels may not cross internal waters and may only pass through territorial waters if the passage is considered “innocent passage” or “transit passage”. Nations can make laws, regulate use, and utilize any resource found in internal or territorial waters.
Additionally, the contiguous zone was determined to be an additional 12 nautical miles (22.22 kilometers) from the outer edge of the territorial waters, where a nation can only enforce laws relating to immigration, taxation, pollution and customs. Each nation, under the Law of the Sea Treaty, has the right to exploit resources found within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which extends 200 nautical miles (370.4 kilometers) from the baseline. Coastal states also retain rights to mineral and non-living material found in the continental shelf off its border.
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