***We are very pleased to announce that this month’s Globalist will be in person on Thursday, April 21st, 6:30–7:30 p.m.!! Please join us in the private dining room at La Madeleine’s located at 9828 Great Hills Trail, Suite 650, Austin, TX 78759.***
International Waters: The Law of the Sea vs. a Country’s Coastal Sovereignty
When we refer to a country’s border, we at least have a map as to where one country ends and another one begins. However, how do we define those boundaries on water?
International waters (high seas) do not belong to any individual country’s jurisdiction, and all have the right to fishing, navigation, overflight, laying cables and pipelines, as well as scientific research.
Beginning in the 1950s, international mandates have come to govern who has sovereignty over a country’s coastal waters. The Convention on the High Seas, defined “high seas” to mean “all parts of the sea that are not included in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State.” This was used as a foundation for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), signed in 1982, which recognized exclusive economic zones extending 200 nautical miles.
But competition for natural resources and a military presence have led countries like China to create their own definition of its coastal waters’ sovereignty – the Nine-Dash-Line. This has led to serious tensions among China’s regional neighbors, such as the Philippines and Vietnam. In the Arctic, Nordic Nations have their own boundary issues, with competition for resources with Russia.
