SUBMITTED BY :-

NAME -MUSKAN BHARDWAJ

CA-2
 INTRODUCTION

A sea is a sizable body of water that has land all around it. It plays a vital role in human trade
and commerce, travel, the mining of minerals, and the production of electricity, and is currently
seen as a key component of the blue economy. The international law of the sea is a body of law
governing maritime space that arbitrates disputes between or among States regarding their
maritime borders peacefully. It also establishes the various maritime zone jurisdictions and the
rights and responsibilities of coastal States within these zones, particularly regarding biodiversity
and marine environment conservation.
This academic research's main goal is to provide a concise summary of the international law of
the sea, with a focus on the framework and sources of that law. Additionally, the focus of this
study is on the responsibilities, rights, and civil and criminal culpability of coastal nations to
various marine zones. Additionally, this study outlines the guidelines and bounds of using these
marine zones in light of numerous treaty articles on the international law of the sea. It also
presents several adjudicated cases and closely examines their facts, issues, conclusions, and
rationale.
A body of international treaties and agreements known as the Law of Sea governs all marine
activity. It promotes harmony between the sea and the states that border it. It manages all marine
economic operations, upholds navigational regulations, and shields the sea from governing
forces as one of the central focuses of international law. It helps preserve the aquatic ecosystem
and controls the geographical activities of different coastal states. The Convention on the Law of
sea is an international treaty with UN headquarters that is related to the law of the sea. 117 states
signed it in 1982, and it was ratified in 1994.
 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND BACKGROUND

Hugo Grotius, a Dutch lawyer and philosopher who lived from 1583 to 1645, is regarded as the
father of modern international law and spearheaded the formulation of the Law of the Sea.

For a long time, the idea of freedom of the seas was upheld, restricting national rights and
jurisdiction to the little area that encircles each country's shore. It emphasized the freedom of the
seas and the law, supporting the open sea philosophy that said there were no restrictions and that
the rest of the sea belonged to everyone to explore but was owned by no one.
By the middle of the 20th century, there was a growing threat of conflict and instability for the
oceans due to a variety of factors, including the toll taken on coastal fisheries, pollution threats,
waste from transport ships, and various claims, growing pollution, growing demands, and
tensions between coastal nations over resource rights.

President Harry S. Truman gave the United Nations its first extension of continental shelf
jurisdiction in 1945 in response to pressure from domestic oil interests. It was the first instance
of the Freedom of the Seas doctrine being broken.
After that, several other countries made claims to the territorial sea, including Argentina in 1946,
Chile and Peru in 1947, Ecuador in 1950, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya, and
several other Eastern European nations.
After nearly ten years of negotiations (1973–1982), the UN Convention on Maritime Law
(UNCLOS) was finally enacted and signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, in 1982. The four Geneva
Conventions, which addressed the territorial sea and contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the
high seas, fisheries, and the preservation of living marine resources on the high seas, were
replaced by this agreement in April 1958. Since it addresses all aspects of marine regions and
their actions and consequences—such as different types of pollution—the updated language has
a wider application. It created a more general framework by combining all of the information
that was known from the four preceding conventions.

THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT’S STANCE ON TERRITORIAL WATERS

India's stance on the law of the sea is established by Section 297 of the Indian Constitution as
well as laws about waterways, the continental shelf, the EEZ, and other marine zones. The
Maritime Zone Law defines Indian authority over the seas and bottom, as well as the land and
aircraft over those waters. Every point on the boundary line is 12 miles long, measured from the
point nearest to the base within the designated region. Every international vessel is entitled to an
unhindered passage through territorial seas.
 NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

The laws, conventions, and obligations that govern how nations maintain orderly, productive,
and peaceful oceans are collectively referred to as the law of the sea.

NOAA's nautical charts indicate the outer limit of domestic waters and the inner boundary of the
maritime boundary. This delineates the boundaries of the United States territorial seas for
international law.

In the history of maritime law, several international agreements reached in the latter half of the
20th century are significant. The United Nations (UN) convened UNCLOS I, the inaugural
meeting on maritime law, in 1956, and it resulted in a convention in 1958.

The law of the sea refers to the set of rules, agreements, and responsibilities that control how
countries manage productive, peaceful, and orderly waters.

The inner boundary of the maritime boundary and the outer limit of domestic waterways are
shown on NOAA's nautical charts. For international law, this establishes the limits of the United
States' territorial seas.

Some international agreements made in the second half of the 20th century hold great
significance in the history of maritime law. UNCLOS I, the first meeting on marine law, was
called by the United Nations (UN) in 1956, and it produced a convention the following year, in
1958.
NOAA's nautical charts (EEZ) must show the limits of the twenty-odd nautical mile Extended
Economic Zone, the twenty-odd nautical mile Territorial Sea, and the twenty-odd nautical mile
Interconnected Zone. All of these marine zones are projected using the "normal baseline," which
is derived from NOAA nautical charts.

TERRITORIAL WATERS

According to international law, a state's territorial waters are the parts of the ocean that are
immediately next to its coast and are under its territorial jurisdiction. Therefore, territorial waters
must be distinguished from both internal or inland waterways, such as lakes completely encircled
by the national territory or specific bays or estuaries, and the high seas, which are shared by all
nations.
The debate over the sea's legal standing during the 17th century, when modern international law
was first forming, is where the idea of territorial seas historically came from. Despite the
eventual upholding of the idea that the sea must be open to everybody, most observers
acknowledged that a coastal state must, in practice, have some sovereignty over the waters
around its shores. In the late 18th century, two opposing ideas—that the area of jurisdiction
should be restricted to the cannon-shot range and that it should be a much wider belt of uniform
width next to the coast—came together to form a compromise viewpoint that suggested a fixed
limit of three nautical miles (1 marine league, or 3.45 statute miles [5.5 km]).
Although many other maritime powers came to recognize the same limit during the 19th century,
the United Powers accepted three miles in 1793 for neutrality purposes. However, the limit never
gained such broad recognition as to constitute an uncontested rule of international law.
Throughout this historical evolution, it was established that the coastal state possesses
sovereignty over the belt of territorial waters, as well as the seabed and subsoil under it and the
airspace above it. The only thing that qualifies this sovereignty is the right of innocent passage
for foreign merchant vessels—that is, peaceful transit that does not jeopardize the security or
good order of the coastal state. The right of innocent passage does not include the fish right and
does not extend to aircraft or submerged submarines. There isn't a consensus on the belt's width,
except for the fact that each state has a minimum of three nautical miles to claim. States often
oppose claims that exceed 12 nautical miles (22 km). However, during the 1960s and 1970s,
there was a noticeable shift towards a 12-nautical-mile limit. About 40 states, including China,
India, Mexico, Pakistan, Egypt, and the Soviet Union, adopted this stance.

Zones in the nearby high seas where coastal states claim no territorial rights but assert limited
jurisdiction for one or more particular objectives are distinct from territorial waters proper.
Usually claimed for enforcing sanitary and customs laws, these continuous zones, which extend
6 to 12 nautical miles (11 to 22 km) outside territorial waters, may also be established for
security or fisheries protection.
.. The claims that numerous states asserted after 1945 to the continental shelf off their coasts, in
or on which potentially significant resources might exist, are also distinct from territorial seas.
While actions by some states, like Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, that asserted jurisdiction over
waters as well as shelf for as far as 200 nautical miles (370 km) offshore evoked wide protest as
unacceptable extensions of territorial waters, other states met with little opposition to such claims
when limited to the shelf itself, without affecting the status as high seas of the waters above.

A convention upholding the generally acknowledged ideas of the legal character of the territorial
sea and the right of innocent passage was developed during the 1958 United Nations Conference
on the Law of the Sea, which was held in Geneva and attended by 86 countries. By the time this
treaty came into force in 1964, nearly forty states had approved it. In 1982, 117 countries signed
the Law of the Sea Treaty, which was more extensive.

HIGH SEAS

High seas, in maritime law, are all parts of the mass of saltwater surrounding the globe that are
not part of the territorial sea or internal waters of a state. For several centuries beginning in the
European Middle Ages, several maritime states asserted sovereignty over large portions of the
high seas. Well-known examples were the claims of Genoa in the Mediterranean and of Great
Britain in the North Sea and elsewhere.

Hugo Grotius, a Dutch lawyer, first articulated the idea that, during times of peace, the high seas
are accessible to all nations and cannot be subordinated to national sovereignty. This idea is
known as freedom of the seas, and it dates back to 1609. It was not until the 19th century,
nonetheless, that it was recognized as a fundamental tenet of international law. Freedom of the
seas was fiercely pushed by the major maritime and commercial powers, especially Great
Britain, and was ideologically linked to other 19th-century liberties, particularly laissez-faire
economic philosophy. Today, it is acknowledged that freedom of the high seas extends to
fishing, aircraft overflight, undersea cable and pipeline construction, and navigation.
During the mid-1900s, several coastal states' demands for enhanced security and customs zones,
exclusive offshore fishing rights, marine resource conservation, and the extraction of resources,
particularly oil, from continental shelves led to significant confrontations. In an attempt to codify
the law of the high seas, the United Nations held its first Conference on the Law of the Sea in
Geneva in 1958. However, the conference failed to settle several issues, most notably the
maximum allowable width of the territorial sea subject to national sovereignty. This issue was
not addressed at a second conference that met in Geneva in 1960, nor at a third that started in
Caracas in 1973 and eventually met in Geneva and New York City.

EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE

The EEZ is a zone in the sea over which a sovereign nation has certain special rights about the
exploration and usage of marine resources, including the extraction of oil and natural gas and the
production of energy from wind and water. This definition was provided by the 1982 United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The area both beside and outside of the territorial sea is known as the EEZ.
Its maximum extension from the baseline is 200 nautical miles. The low-water line along the
shore, as shown on large-scale charts officially recognized by the coastal state, is the baseline
that is typically measured.

The continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles and the territorial sea are not included in the
EEZ.
The contiguous zone is included in the EEZ.
The nation has rights over natural resources inside the EEZ. Among other reasons, the nation has
jurisdiction over some actions related to environmental protection.
It must also honor other nations' rights within the EEZ, including the freedom of navigation.
 CONTINENTAL SHELF

To explore and utilize its natural riches, the coastal states have exclusive sovereign rights over
the continental shelf, which includes the seabed and subsoil of the underwater areas that extend
beyond their territorial sea.
The seabed and subsoil of the shelf, the slope, and the rise make up the continental margin,
which is the submerged extension of the landmass of the coastal State. It excludes the subsoil
and the deep ocean bottom with its oceanic ridges.

CONCLUSION

A vast area of international law known as the law of the sea addresses a variety of subjects,
including deep seabed mining, fishing, environmental preservation, navigation, and scientific
study. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which offers "the legal
framework within which all activities in the oceans and seas must be carried out," is now widely
regarded as a "constitution for the oceans." Nearly every maritime activity imaginable is covered
by the Convention.
However, since the 1982 Convention's completion, the law of the sea has not remained stagnant.
In several instances, states have been required to create comprehensive regulations and standards
to control a specific activity because the Convention merely offers a general framework. In other
instances, the Convention system has needed to be modified to account for advancements in
science and technology concerning the seas, as well as shifts in the political beliefs of the global
community. Through international organizations, the law of the sea regime has undergone many
developments.
The study's main focus has been on the various international institutions' legislative activity. This
book's goal has been to examine the institutions that have contributed to the continued evolution
of the law of the sea and the roles that they have performed.
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