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 agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. As of May 2023, 168 countries and the European Union are parties.
An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by humans rather than formed through natural processes. Other definitions may suggest that artificial islands are lands with the characteristics of human intervention in their format process, while others argue that artificial islands are created by expanding existing islets, constructing on existing reefs, or amalgamating several islets together. Although constructing artificial islands is not a modern phenomenon, there is no definite legal definition of it. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those that support entire communities and cities. Archaeologists argue that such islands were created as far back as the Neolithic era. Early artificial islands included floating structures in still waters or wooden or megalithic structures erected in shallow waters.
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.
Freedom of the seas is a principle in the law of the sea. It stresses freedom to navigate the oceans. It also disapproves of war fought in water. The freedom is to be breached only in a necessary international agreement.
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.
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. EEZ does not define the ownership of any maritime features within the EEZ.
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 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is legally defined geographic feature of the United States. The OCS is the part of the internationally recognized continental shelf of the United States which does not fall under the jurisdictions of the individual U.S. states.
Subi Reef, also known as Zamora Reef ; Zhubi Reef ; Vietnamese: đá Xu Bi, is an atoll in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea located 26 km (16 mi) southwest of Philippines' Pag-asa island Thitu Island under the municipality of the Kalayaan Island Group, Palawan province as claimed by Philippines. It is occupied by China (PRC), and claimed by Taiwan (ROC) and Vietnam. According to the claims of the PRC, it currently falls under the de facto jurisdiction of Nansha islands, Sansha city, Hainan province, China. But under the clauses of the UNCLOS, which the PRC is also a signatory, the international law only the Philippines has the maritime rights to exploit its resources or build structures, as it is within the continental shelf of the coastal country.
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").
A maritime boundary is a conceptual division of Earth's water surface areas using physiographical or geopolitical criteria. As such, it usually bounds areas of exclusive national rights over mineral and biological resources, encompassing maritime features, limits and zones. Generally, a maritime boundary is delineated at a particular distance from a jurisdiction's coastline. Although in some countries the term maritime boundary represents borders of a maritime nation that are recognized by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, maritime borders usually serve to identify the edge of international waters.
Low-tide elevation is a naturally formed area of land which is above water and surrounded by water at low tide but submerged at high tide. It may be a mudflat or reef.
An archipelagic state is an island country that consists of an archipelago. The designation is legally defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In various conferences, The Bahamas, Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines are the five original sovereign states that obtained approval in the UNCLOS signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica on 10 December 1982 and qualified as the archipelagic states.
There are disputes between China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea over the extent of their respective exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the East China Sea.
The exclusive economic zone of Somalia covers 830,389 km2 in the Indian Ocean. It extends to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines, from which the breadth of the nation's territorial waters is measured. In accordance with Law No. 37 passed in 1972, Somalia's EEZ falls under its territorial sovereignty.
The exclusive economic zone of Canada is the area of the sea in which Canada has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
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.
