The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international treaty that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. As of July 2024, 169 States and the European Union are parties.
The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems (aquifers), and wetlands.
Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf. In a narrower sense, the term is often used as a synonym for the territorial sea.
Law of the sea is a body of international law governing the rights and duties of states in maritime environments. It concerns matters such as navigational rights, sea mineral claims, and coastal waters jurisdiction. The connotation of ocean law is somewhat broader, but the law of the sea is so comprehensive that it covers all areas of ocean law as well.
An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has exclusive rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
Freedom of navigation (FON) is a principle of law of the sea that ships flying the flag of any sovereign state shall not suffer interference from other states when in international waters, apart from the exceptions provided for in international law. In the realm of international law, it has been defined as “freedom of movement for vessels, freedom to enter ports and to make use of plant and docks, to load and unload goods and to transport goods and passengers". This right is now also codified as Article 87(1)a of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Innocent passage is a concept in the law of the sea that allows for a vessel to pass through the territorial sea of another state, subject to certain restrictions. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Article 19 defines innocent passage as:
- Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. Such passage shall take place in conformity with this Convention and with other rules of international law.
- Passage of a foreign ship shall be considered to be prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State if in the territorial sea it engages in any of the following activities:
In Canadian law, Canadian Internal Waters are the waters "on the landward side of the baselines of the territorial sea of Canada."
According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a nation's internal waters include waters on the side of the baseline of a nation's territorial waters that is facing toward the land, except in archipelagic states. It includes waterways such as rivers and canals, and sometimes the water within small bays.
Ambalat is a sea block in the Celebes sea located off the east coast of Borneo. It lies to the east of the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan and to the south-east of the Malaysian state of Sabah, and it is the subject of a territorial dispute between the two nations. Malaysia refers to part of the Ambalat block as Block ND6 (formerly Block Y) and part of East Ambalat Block as Block ND7 (formerly Block Z). The deep sea blocks contain an estimated 62,000,000 barrels (9,900,000 m3) of oil and 348 million cubic meters of natural gas. Other estimates place it substantially higher: 764,000,000 barrels (121,500,000 m3) of oil and 3.96 × 1010 cubic meters (1.4 trillion cubic feet) of gas, in only one of nine points in Ambalat.
The Arctic consists of land, internal waters, territorial seas, exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and international waters above the Arctic Circle. All land, internal waters, territorial seas and EEZs in the Arctic are under the jurisdiction of one of the eight Arctic coastal states: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. International law regulates this area as with other portions of Earth.
The Malaysia–Philippines border is a maritime boundary located in the South China, Sulu and Celebes Seas. It separates the Malaysian state of Sabah, which is on the island of Borneo, and the Sulu Islands of the southern Philippines.
Transit passage is a concept of the law of the sea, which allows a vessel or aircraft the freedom of navigation or overflight solely for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit of a strait between one part of the high seas or exclusive economic zone and another. The requirement of continuous and expeditious transit does not preclude passage through the strait for the purpose of entering, leaving or returning from a state bordering the strait, subject to the conditions of entry to that state. The transit passage may be exercised regardless of the nationality (flag) of the ship, its form of ownership, the merchant or government status of a ship or warship, the private or government status of an aircraft.
The territorial waters of Indonesia are defined according to the principles set out in Article 46 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Their boundary consists of straight lines ("baselines") linking 195 coordinate points located at the outer edge of the archipelago ("basepoints").
The Spratly Islands dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute among Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam concerning "ownership" of the Spratly Islands, a group of islands and associated "maritime features" located in the South China Sea. The dispute is characterized by diplomatic stalemate and the employment of military pressure techniques in the advancement of national territorial claims. All except Brunei occupy some of the maritime features.
The baselines of the Philippines are the set of geodesic lines completely encircling the Philippine archipelago from where the maritime entitlements of the country are measured. It was first established in 1961 by an act of the Congress of the Philippines which was further amended in April 2009 to optimize and conform it to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the Philippines is a signatory. A total of 101 basepoints providing for 100 baselines were identified under Republic Act No. 9522, which identified Amianan Island as the northernmost, Frances Reef as the southernmost, Pusan Point as its easternmost and the Balabac Great Reef as the westernmost points of the main Philippine archipelago.
During the administration of President Barack Obama, there were six instances of the United States Navy performing a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea (SCS). During the same period the USN also performed multiple other FONOPs in other parts of the world. The SCS operations involved Arleigh-Burke class guided missile destroyers assigned to United States Seventh Fleet. The U.S. FONOP program began in 1979 and the Department of Defense (DoD) keeps public records of FONOPs since 1991 on its website. The Department of State (DoS) provided guidance to the DoD on conducting FONOPs, with a particular focus on the South China Sea and East China Sea, while pushing back on the People's Republic of China and their "excessive territorial claims", specifically with the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, and Senkaku Islands.
Wawasan Nusantara, or Indonesian Archipelagic Vision, is the national vision of Indonesia towards their people, nation, and territory of the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia as a unity of political, economic, social, cultural, defensive and security-driven entities. This national insight subsequently serves as the perspective or vision of the nation towards its national goals and ideals.
A coastal state is a term found in the law of the sea. Although widely used in the legal documents, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), this term lacks a precise definition. The "essential idea" of a coastal state is having an open sea coast and asserting the sovereignty or jurisdiction in the areas of the sea adjacent to this coast. Norway, Canada, and Chile are examples of the coastal states, Churchill counts up a total of 150 of such states.
An international strait is a narrow natural waterway connecting two parts of the high seas or exclusive economic zones, used for international navigation. Per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a transit passage regime prevails in such straits for both ships and aircraft with few exceptions, even when the territorial waters of bordering country or countries overlap. Worldwide, more than 200 straits might satisfy the criteria of an international strait. Notable international straits include Bosporus and Dardanelles, Strait of Magellan, Strait of Gibraltar, Strait of Dover, and Danish straits, with the most famous being probably the Strait of Hormuz.
