CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

CYIL 15 ȍ2024Ȏ THIRTY YEARS SINCE THE ENTRY INTO FORCE OF THE UN CONVENTION … 1. Resolving the issues of maritime law, which were not settled at the previous conferences on the law of the sea, at the Third Conference T he issues unresolved at previous conferences or not resolved at all, the given regulation is contained in the Convention were managed to get resolved at the Third Conference on the Law of the Sea. From this point of view, these were positive results and a success of the conference. Among other things, the states managed to reach an agreement on the width of the territorial sea. According to Article 3 of the Convention, every state has the right to determine the width of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding twelve nautical miles measured from the baselines determined in accordance with this Convention. Due to the maximum width of the territorial sea, the Convention newly defined the maximum width of the contiguous zone. According to Article 33(2) of the Convention, the contiguous zone may not extend further than 24 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea also stipulates the legal regulation of archipelagic states in Article 46 et seq in a completely new way. The Geneva Conventions did not contain the legal regulation of the waters of archipelagic states. This is related to the states such as the Philippines or Indonesia. In particular, these two states addressed their demands to the sea power states regarding the need for legal regulation of the waters of the archipelagic states. According to Article 46 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ‘archipelagic state’ is a state that consists of one or more archipelagos and may include other islands. The archipelago means a group of islands, including parts of islands, interconnected by waters and other natural features, that are so closely related to each other that such islands, waters, and other natural features form a single geographical, economic, and political entity or have historically been considered as such. The Convention also newly contains a comprehensive regulation of straits used for international navigation in Article 34 et seq. In the professor V. Kopal’s view [t]he new codification of the law of the sea as a whole, and particularly the vitality of its part dealing with the legal regime and organization for the sea-bed area, will be tested in near future. Should they resist and survive all possible attempts at destroying them, they must gratify in a balanced manner the needs and interests of all groups of States of the present world. For only with an active participation and endorsement of all such groups international law of our times can really expand. 4

2. Restriction of the high seas area, creation of an exclusive economic zone

The legal regulation of the exclusive economic zone is completely new in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The legal regime of the exclusive economic zone is considered to be an expression of a compromise in regard to the efforts of some states to

4 KOPAL, V. Problems of the New Codification of the Law of the Sea, with a special reference to rights and interests of Land-Locked States, abstract. Prague: Academia, 1983, p. 291.

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