Exclusive Economic Zone & UNCLOS

States Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) extend no more than 200 nautical miles from the territorial sea baseline and is adjacent to the 12 nautical mile territorial sea. The Part V Article 55 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines the EEZ as:

“The exclusive economic zone is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea, subject to the specific legal regime established in this Part, under which the rights and jurisdiction of the coastal state and the rights and freedoms of other States are governed by the relevant provisions of this Convention.”

To elaborate matters further in the year 1982 the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea defined a set of rules on how to divide the marine regions. A country has control over both the seafloor as well as ships travelling at the sea surface in an area that extends up to 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) from its coastline.This is called a country’s territorial sea and its outline is similar to the borders that exist on land.

Extending beyond this point and reaching up to 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) from a country’s coast lies its Exclusive Economic Zone. Within this region a country owns the natural resources at the seafloor but has no say on what happens at the surface. Any ships in an Exclusive Economic Zone are essentially in international waters.

The jurisdiction of the coastal state within the EEZ only pertains to natural resources (fish, offshore oil and gas).  Issues emerge in cases where jurisdiction over sedentary and underground resources is wider  when the continental shelf extends beyond 200 nm and the legal parameters for such an eventuality are provided for in Article 76 of UNCLOS . At an earlier stage the 200 meter depth contour was generally acceptable as the limit of the  continental shelf.  The sedentary living resources are defined in UNCLOS as fixed to the bottom or unable to move unless in contact with the ocean bottom. In situations where maritime countries share the same continental shelf or the distance between their shores is less than 400 nautical miles boundaries between maritime states are settled by negotiations usually resorting to the equidistance principle. Complications arise when sovereignty claims are made over over uninhabited islands.

 

Analysis by Nadir Mumtaz & Hafiz Munawwar Iqbal ASC

Credit ;  https://iilss.net/exclusive-economic-zoneeez-map-of-the-world/

https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf