Because the sea has been an essential means of transport since ancient times, and even today merchant shipping still carries 95 per cent (by weight) of all exports, the rules governing the use of the sea (including its resources and environment) are one of the principal subjects of international law. The law is a mixture of treaty and established or emerging customary international law, the customary law having developed over centuries. The first successful attempt to codify the law was the 1958 UN Conventions on the Law of the Sea, but the most important aspects of the law are now set out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982.
For those parties to the Convention that were parties to the 1958 Conventions, the 1982 Convention replaces them. Although between thirty-seven and sixty-two states are still listed as parties to the four 1958 Conventions, in many cases they are now bound by the 1982 Convention, which entered into force on 16 November 1994, and now has 148 parties. As most of the Convention’s provisions represent customary international law, even non-parties, such as Iran and the United States, are already bound by those provisions albeit as customary international law. In considering a particular situation, such as passage through straits, one must thus consider carefully the legal position of the states involved. This requires an investigation into which general treaties on the subject are binding on them (in particular, the relevant 1958 Convention or UNCLOS); if on the specific matter there are any other relevant multilateral or bilateral treaties; and whether customary international law as represented in the 1982 Convention is applicable.
For those parties to the Convention that were parties to the 1958 Conventions, the 1982 Convention replaces them. Although between thirty-seven and sixty-two states are still listed as parties to the four 1958 Conventions, in many cases they are now bound by the 1982 Convention, which entered into force on 16 November 1994, and now has 148 parties. As most of the Convention’s provisions represent customary international law, even non-parties, such as Iran and the United States, are already bound by those provisions albeit as customary international law. In considering a particular situation, such as passage through straits, one must thus consider carefully the legal position of the states involved. This requires an investigation into which general treaties on the subject are binding on them (in particular, the relevant 1958 Convention or UNCLOS); if on the specific matter there are any other relevant multilateral or bilateral treaties; and whether customary international law as represented in the 1982 Convention is applicable.
Internal Water (ႏုိင္ငံတစ္ႏုိင္ငံ၏အတြင္းပိုင္းေရပိုင္နက္)
ကုန္းေၿမမွပင္လယ္ဘက္သို႔ Slope ၿဖစ္သြားေသာကုန္းေၿမ၏ edge point ကို ဆိုလိုပါတယ္။အဲ့ဒီ point ကိုသက္ဆိုင္ ရာနူိင္ငံ၏ baseline အၿဖစ္ယူပါတယ္။ထို base line point မွစ၍ the breadth territorial sea,the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and the continental shelf ကိုတိုင္းတာ ႏူိင္ပါသည္။ထိုကဲ့သို႔တိုင္းတာၿခင္းတြင္ပင္လယ္ေအာ္ေတြ၊ estuaries(the tidal mouth of large river, ports,river,canal and lakes ႏွင့္ ကုန္းတြင္းပိုင္းပင္လယ္မ်ားလည္းပါ၀င္သည္။Base line သည္maritime boundary ကန္႔သတ္ၿခင္းတြင္းအေရးၾကီးပါသည္။ ကမ္းေၿခတေလွ်ာက္ large-scale charts ေပၚတြင္ coastal state က တရား၀င္ အသိအမွတ္ၿပဳထားေသာ lower water mark ကို normal baseline အၿဖစ္သတ္မွတ္ ပါတယ္။territorial sea အတြင္း ႐ွိ area of land ဟာ low-tide elevation မွာ ေရေပါ ေပၚၿပီး၊ high-tide elevation မွာၿမဳပ္ေနရင္လည္း baseline အၿဖစ္ယူလိုရပါသည္။
Territorial sea
Coastal state sovereignty extends beyond land territory and internal waters to an adjacent belt of sea known as the territorial sea. Since sovereignty over the territorial sea is incidental to the sovereignty over the land, it does not have to be established. However, each coastal state has to specify the breath of its territorial sea, which can be up to a maximum of twelve nautical miles measured from the baselines.
Contiguous zone
The term ‘contiguous zone’ is less well known. It can extend beyond the territorial sea, but not further than twenty-four nautical miles from the baselines. Within the zone the coastal state is entitled to exercise the control necessary to prevent and punish infringements of its customs, fiscal, immigration and sanitary laws and regulations when committed within its territory or territorial sea.
Exclusive economic zone
The exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is an area adjacent to the territorial sea and extending up to 200 nautical miles from the baselines. Most of the area would have been high seas, and so the EEZ, not being under the sovereignty of the coastal state, does not have the same legal character as the territorial sea. Instead, it is a zone in which the coastal state enjoys only sovereign rights for certain purposes. An EEZ has to be formally established by the coastal state, and most have done so. The EEZ is a recent development. It is particularly important for developing countries since it gives them substantial rights over natural resources within the EEZ. The vast majority of fish stocks are found within 200 nautical miles from the coast.
Continental shelf
The continental shelf comprises the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond the territorial sea of a coastal state throughout the natural prolongation of the land territory to either (1) the outer edge of the continental margin or (2) 200 nautical miles from the baselines. A coastal state exercises sovereign rights (not sovereignty) over its continental shelf for the purposes of exploring it and exploiting its natural resources. These rights are inherent; unlike an EEZ, they do not have to be proclaimed and do not depend on occupation. They are also exclusive; if the coastal state chooses not to explore or exploit the natural resources, no other state may do so without its express consent.
A state that wishes to establish an outer limit of its continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit is required to submit information to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS).
Warships and ships used only on government non-commercial service
In peacetime, a warship may carry out various civil duties in support of the government of the flag state, including enforcing fisheries and anti-pollution laws. On the high seas, a warship is comparable to a floating piece of territory of the flag state, since it has complete immunity from the jurisdiction of any other state. This applies also in a foreign EEZ, although whether a warship may test weapons or conduct manoeuvres there is disputed. Where there is a right of transit passage through international straits, this is enjoyed by all ships, and thus includes warships. In such straits, submarines do not have to navigate on the surface. But, when in the territorial sea of another state, submarines and other underwater vehicles must navigate on the surface and show their flag. Whether a warship enjoys the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea is not agreed. If a warship does not comply with the laws and regulations of the coastal state concerning passage, it can be required to leave the territorial sea immediately. If it does not do so, the coastal state can use reasonable force to remove it.
A state can refuse entry to its ports to a foreign warship, clearance must be sought by the flag state. This is known as ‘diplomatic’ clearance since it is done through the diplomatic channel. As with warships, foreign governmental ships operated for non-commercial purposes enjoy state immunity, but determining whether the purpose is non-commercial may not be easy to do.
Continental shelf
The continental shelf comprises the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond the territorial sea of a coastal state throughout the natural prolongation of the land territory to either (1) the outer edge of the continental margin or (2) 200 nautical miles from the baselines. A coastal state exercises sovereign rights (not sovereignty) over its continental shelf for the purposes of exploring it and exploiting its natural resources. These rights are inherent; unlike an EEZ, they do not have to be proclaimed and do not depend on occupation. They are also exclusive; if the coastal state chooses not to explore or exploit the natural resources, no other state may do so without its express consent.
A state that wishes to establish an outer limit of its continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit is required to submit information to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS).
Warships and ships used only on government non-commercial service
In peacetime, a warship may carry out various civil duties in support of the government of the flag state, including enforcing fisheries and anti-pollution laws. On the high seas, a warship is comparable to a floating piece of territory of the flag state, since it has complete immunity from the jurisdiction of any other state. This applies also in a foreign EEZ, although whether a warship may test weapons or conduct manoeuvres there is disputed. Where there is a right of transit passage through international straits, this is enjoyed by all ships, and thus includes warships. In such straits, submarines do not have to navigate on the surface. But, when in the territorial sea of another state, submarines and other underwater vehicles must navigate on the surface and show their flag. Whether a warship enjoys the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea is not agreed. If a warship does not comply with the laws and regulations of the coastal state concerning passage, it can be required to leave the territorial sea immediately. If it does not do so, the coastal state can use reasonable force to remove it.
A state can refuse entry to its ports to a foreign warship, clearance must be sought by the flag state. This is known as ‘diplomatic’ clearance since it is done through the diplomatic channel. As with warships, foreign governmental ships operated for non-commercial purposes enjoy state immunity, but determining whether the purpose is non-commercial may not be easy to do.
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