The term international waters is basically transboundary waters or it means water bodies of a territory moving or having effect across a boundary. You enter international waters or the high sea as you cross 24 nautical miles from a country’s coastline. This is where marine law begins to blotch and become impenetrable.
Technically it means freedom related to navigation was made available for navigation purposes for everyone. The geophysical identity of the waterbed cannot let any individual take over its ownership. But the amplify of trade through the seas, over the years, undermined the concept of freedom of seas. Oceans and seas in whichever nation’s territories have particular laws related to it restricting the use of it by other States. All the oceans and seas for ages have shaped everyone’s lives along with helping in trade, growth of the economy, business, and communication.
The water bodies that commonly transcend state boundaries are lakes, rivers, estuaries, wetlands, and aquifers. Oceans, regional seas, and the vast marine ecosystems often transcend international boundaries. The common term for both occurrences is “Terra nullius” (Latin for no man’s land), signifying that the land/waters belong to nobody.
Since no nation or state can control the waters, each of them has the unregulated liberty to take part in any water-related activities such as fishing, setting up infrastructures such as cables and pipelines, and research among other activities. International waters are also known as high seas. mba in business analytics bangalore
Conference of convention on International Waters
The establishment of high seas was instituted by the Convention on the High Seas in 1958 and includes 63 signatories. The term high sea means two things:
- No state can legally impose its rule on any part of the water and
- Every part of the sea outside a territorial boundary is a high sea.
The Convention on the High Seas is based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The convention instituted economic zones 200 nautical miles from the baseline of the coastal shores into the water body. All manner of water activities at the Exclusive Economic Zones are under the sovereignty of the bordering nations and include the natural resources at the sea floor.
UN on International waters
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. As of June 2016, 167 countries and the European Union are parties. The Convention resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), which took place between 1973 and 1982. UNCLOS replaced the four treaties of the 1958 Convention on the High Seas. UNCLOS came into force in 1994, a year after Guyana became the 60th nation to ratify the treaty. Top b Schools in Bangalore for MBA
Disputes on International waters
Arctic sea region
The status of certain portions of the Arctic sea region is in dispute for various reasons. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States all regard parts of the Arctic seas as national waters (territorial waters out to 12 nautical miles (22 km)) or internal waters. There also are disputes regarding what passages constitute international seaways and rights to passage along them. There was one single disputed piece of land in the Arctic—Hans Island—which was disputed until 2022 between Canada and Denmark because of its location in the middle of a strait. mba in operations management in bangalore
South China Sea
Territorial disputes in the South China Sea involve conflicting island and maritime claims in the region by several sovereign states, namely Brunei, the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan (Republic of China/ROC), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. An estimated US$3.37 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually, which accounts for a third of the global maritime trade. 80 percent of China's energy imports and 39.5 percent of China's total trade passes through the South China Sea.
The disputes involve the islands, reefs, banks, and other features of the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and various boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin. There are further disputes, such as the waters near the Indonesian Natuna Islands, which many do not regard as part of the South China Sea. Claimant states are interested in retaining or acquiring the rights to fishing stocks, the exploration and potential exploitation of crude oil and natural gas in the seabed of various parts of the South China Sea, and the strategic control of important shipping lanes. Maritime security is also an issue, as the ongoing disputes present challenges for
Shipping Industry.
Exploitation of international seas and coasts is increasing as new industries emerge and traditional ones move further off-shore. The main pressures include: extraction of species and genetic resources, seafloor exploitation, pollution and the spread of non-indigenous species.
As the world consumption is increasing we have a pressing force which is acting on our natural resources and poses a threat on its sustenance. As a responsible generation to this planet we must conclude to agreement in terms of our care and responsibility to these water resources.
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