Research Philosophy

111 CHAPTER FOUR

OTHER JURIDICAL ZONES OF THE SEA

The Geneva Conventions on Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, Continental Shelfand High Sea, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which was adopted on 29 April 1958 and 10 December 1982 respectively, were recognized as universal legal documents on the seas. The Conventions provide a comprehensive legal regime for the world‟s oceans and divide marine space into different recognized zones and set out the rights and responsibilities of States within the zones. Such maritime zones include internal waters and territorial sea discussed above, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone, continental shelf,²⁶⁵ and archipelagic waters which are to be established by coastal States. As noted earlier, the Conventions equally state the rights and obligations of the States on managing and governing their activities including protection and preservation of natural resource in the zones.²⁶⁶ Furthermore, the States enjoy their rights in the Area and High Sea which are beyond their national jurisdiction, for the purpose of exploration and exploitation. It would serve our present purpose here to examine briefly the general interests of States in these zones and their rights and obligations over these areas.

112 Historically some States have claimed to exercise certain rights over particular zones of the high seas.²⁶⁸ These claims have in effect involved some diminution of the principle of the

freedom of the high seas as the jurisdiction of the coastal State has been extended into areas of the high seas contiguous to the territorial sea although for defined purposes only.²⁶⁹ The word „contiguous‟ means no more than „sharing a common border‟

or„touching‟. For example, the Southern Ocean is „contiguous‟ to the Atlantic Ocean.

„Contiguous‟ equally means adjacent, neighbouring, bordering, etc. The maritime term

„contiguous zone‟ therefore means a band of water extending from the outer edge of the territorial sea up to 24 nautical miles from the baseline, within which a State can exert limited control for the purpose of preventing or punishing infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations. Contiguous zone is a maritime zone adjacent to the territorial sea that may not extend beyond 24 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.²⁷⁰

In accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the coastal States have rights to establish their contiguous zone which is adjacent to the territorial sea. The Convention in its article 33 provides that the contiguous zone may extend up to, but not beyond 24 nautical miles from baseline from which the territorial sea is measured. The establishment of contiguous zone is aimed at preventing violation of laws and regulations within the coastal State‟s territorial sea. Article 33, Paragraph1 of

268M. N. Shaw, op cit, p.515.

269Ibid.

270 Farlex,„Defining Contiguous Zone by The Free

Dictionary‟<www.thefreedictionary.com/contiguous+zone>accessed on 28 October 2014.

113 the 1982 Convention provides that in contiguous zone, the coastal State may exercise control necessary to:

a. Prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration, or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea;

b. Punish infringement of the above laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea.

In the spirit of the above article, a coastal State may exercise its rights in a contiguous zone to defend its interests by stopping foreign ship suspected of offending against its laws and regulations, in order to search, inspect or punish the offenders. In a case where suspected foreign ship intends to evade responsibility and leaves the contiguous zone, the coastal State has the Jurisdiction to pursue it beyond the limit of contiguous zone.

Pursuant to Article 111 of the 1982 Convention, pursuit must be commenced when the foreign ship or one of its boats is withinthe internal water, territorial sea or contiguous zone of thepursuing State, and may only be continued outside the territorial sea or contiguous zone if the pursuit has not been interrupted. It has been argued that Article 33 of the 1982 Conventionwhich provides for the rights of coastal States to create contiguous zoneis not exhaustive. This was part of the decision in the case of United States v Fishing Vessel Taiyo Maru²⁷¹ in which a Japanese ship was found fishing illegally in the United States exclusive fishing zone nine miles off-shore and beyond the United State territorial sea limit. It was held that the list of purposes in Article 24 for which a contiguous zone may be established is not exhaustive. The article is permissive

271No.28 (1975)395 F. Supp. 413; (1976) 70 AJIL, 95.

114 rather than restrictive. Although the article only recognizes the right of a coastal State to create a contiguous zone for one of the four purposes enumerated therein, nothing prevents the establishment of such zone for other purposes, including the enforcement of domestic fisheries law.

It is however understood that this power of control or the right accorded coastal States does not in any case change the legal status of the zone as part of the high seas.

These waters are and remain a part of the high seas and are never subject to the sovereignty of the coastal State, which can exercise over them only such rights as are conferred on it by the present legal regime of the sea or are derived from international treaties.²⁷²

When establishing a contiguous zone, the coastal State should take cognizance of the fact of the sea areas, which are, in some cases, bordering by two or more States whose breath does not exceed twice the breath of the territorial sea.²⁷³For instance, the Strait of Malacca, used for international navigation is less than 24 nautical miles wide. In such case, the bordering States have to undertake their agreement in the delimitation of maritime boundary and cooperate in the establishment of international sea route.²⁷⁴