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.
The Timor Gap is an area of the Timor Sea between Australia and Timor Island. The island is divided between independent East Timor and West Timor province of Indonesia.
The Malaysia–Thailand border divides the sovereign states of Malaysia and Thailand and consists of a land boundary running for 595 km across the Malay Peninsula and maritime boundaries in the Straits of Malacca and the Gulf of Thailand/South China Sea. The Golok River forms the easternmost 95 km stretch of the land border.
The Malaysia–Singapore border is an international maritime border between the Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia, which lies to the north of the border, and Singapore to the south. The boundary is formed by straight lines between maritime geographical coordinates running along or near the deepest channel of the Straits of Johor.
The Timor Gap Treaty was formally known as the Treaty between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the zone of cooperation in an area between the Indonesian province of East Timor and Northern Australia. It was a bilateral treaty between the governments of Australia and Indonesia, which provided for the joint exploitation of petroleum and hydrocarbon resources in a part of the Timor Sea Seabed. The treaty was signed on 11 December 1989 and came into force on 9 February 1991. The signatories to the treaty were then Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans and then Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.
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 Indonesia–Malaysia border consists of a 1,881 km land border that divides the territory of Indonesia and Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It also includes maritime boundaries along the length of the Straits of Malacca, in the South China Sea and in the Celebes Sea.
The borders of Malaysia include land and maritime borders with Brunei, Indonesia and Thailand and shared maritime boundaries with Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
The Brunei–Malaysia border divides the territory of Brunei and Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It consists of a 266 km (165 mi) land border and substantial lengths of maritime borders stretching from the coastline of the two countries to the edge of the continental shelf in the South China Sea.
Malaysia and Vietnam are two Southeast Asian countries with maritime boundaries which meet in the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea. The two countries have overlapping claims over the continental shelf in the Gulf of Thailand. Both countries have, however, come to an agreement to jointly exploit the natural resources in the disputed area pending resolution of the dispute over sovereignty.
The Indonesia–Singapore border is a maritime boundary in the Straits of Singapore between Indonesia's Riau Islands which lie to the south of the border, and the islands of Singapore which lie to the north. The Straits of Singapore is one of the region's busiest waterways as it is the main channel for Singapore's ports.
The Australia–Indonesia border is a maritime boundary running west from the two countries' tripoint maritime boundary with Papua New Guinea in the western entrance to the Torres Straits, through the Arafura Sea and Timor Sea, and terminating in the Indian Ocean. The boundary is, however, broken by the Timor Gap, where Australian and East Timorese territorial waters meet and where the two countries have overlapping claims to the seabed.
Officially called the Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), the treaty provides for the equal distribution of revenue derived from the disputed Greater Sunrise oil and gas field between Australia and East Timor. The field is located in the Timor Gap where Australia and East Timor have overlapping claims over the continental shelf or seabed. Prior to the treaty, East Timor would only have received about 18% of the revenue from the field.
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.
The Case concerning maritime delimitation in the Black Sea (Romania v Ukraine) [2009] ICJ 3 was a decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On September 16, 2004, Romania brought its case to the court after unsuccessful bilateral negotiations. On February 3, 2009, the court handed down its verdict, establishing a maritime boundary including the continental shelf and exclusive economic zones for Romania and Ukraine.
The Italy–Tunisia Delimitation Agreement is a 1971 treaty between Italy and Tunisia in which the two countries agreed to delimit a maritime boundary between them in the continental shelf. The text of the treaty sets out a complex boundary in the Strait of Sicily representing an equidistant line between Sicily and Tunisia, with the exception of Pantelleria and the Pelagie Islands. The maritime boundary around these islands, all closer to Tunisia, is made up of 13-nautical-mile arcs of territorial sea centered on each island which join one another and the equidistant line at the center of the Channel of Sicily mentioned above.
Indonesia and Thailand share a common maritime border in the northern part of the Straits of Malacca and the Andaman Sea to the north-east of Indonesia's Sumatera Island and to the west of the western coastline of southern Thailand. The maritime boundary runs between the India-Indonesia-Thailand tripoint in the north, and the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand tripoint in the south.
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.
Australia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) was declared on 1 August 1994 and extends from 12 to 200 nautical miles from the coastline of Australia and its external territories, except where a maritime delimitation agreement exists with another state. To the 12 nautical-mile boundary is Australia's territorial waters. Australia has the third-largest exclusive economic zone, behind France and the United States but ahead of Russia, with the total area of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,060 sq mi), which exceeds its land territory.
