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 October 2024, 169 sovereign states and the European Union are parties.
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.
Serranilla Bank is a partially submerged reef, with small uninhabited islets, in the western Caribbean Sea. It is situated about 350 kilometres (220 mi) northeast of Punta Gorda, Nicaragua, and roughly 280 kilometres (170 mi) southwest of Jamaica. The closest neighbouring land feature is Bajo Nuevo Bank, located 110 kilometres (68 mi) to the east.
Bajo Nuevo Bank, also known as the Petrel Islands, is a small, uninhabited reef with some small grass-covered islets, located in the western Caribbean Sea at 15°53′N78°38′W, with a lighthouse on Low Cay at 15°51′N78°38′W. The closest neighboring land feature is Serranilla Bank, located 110 kilometres to the west.
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.
The Northern Limit Line or North Limit Line (NLL) – 북방한계선 – is a disputed maritime demarcation line in the Yellow (West) Sea between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the north, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south. This line of military control acts as the de facto maritime boundary between North and South Korea.
In Canadian law, Canadian Internal Waters are the waters "on the landward side of the baselines of the territorial sea of Canada."
The natural prolongation principle or principle of natural prolongation is a legal concept introduced in maritime claims submitted to the United Nations.
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 Fiji–France Maritime Delimitation Agreement is a 1983 treaty between France and Fiji which establishes the maritime boundary between Fiji and the French special collectivity of New Caledonia and the boundary between Fiji and the French overseas collectivity of Wallis and Futuna.
The Australia–France Marine Delimitation Agreement is a 1982 treaty between Australia and France which establishes ocean borders between Australian territories and French territories.
The Netherlands–Venezuela Boundary Treaty is a 1978 treaty between territory of the Netherlands and Venezuela which delimits the maritime boundary between territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Venezuelan territory. When the treaty was concluded in 1978, the treaty set out the boundary between what was known as the Netherlands Antilles and Venezuela. Today, it establishes the boundary between Aruba and Venezuela, between Curaçao and Venezuela, and between the BES islands and Venezuela.
The equidistance principle, or principle of equidistance, is a legal concept in maritime boundary claims that a nation's maritime boundaries should conform to a median line that is equidistant from the shores of neighboring nations. The concept was developed in the process of settling disputes in which the borders of adjacent nations were located on a contiguous continental shelf:
An equidistance line is one for which every point on the line is equidistant from the nearest points on the baselines being used. The equidistance principle is a methodology that has been endorsed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea but predates that treaty and has been used by the Supreme Court of the United States, states, and nations to establish boundaries equitably.
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.
Qit'at Jaradah is a cay in the Persian Gulf to the east of Bahrain Island, located 32 km (20 mi) east of Manama, the capital of Bahrain. Historically, the feature was only above the water during spring low tide; it sits approximately midway between Bahrain and Qatar, within the 12-mile (19 km) territorial waters of both countries. It was one of several maritime features contributing to a long running dispute between Bahrain and Qatar.
The exclusive economic zone of North Korea stretches 200 nautical miles from its basepoints in both the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The exclusive economic zone (EEZ) was declared in 1977 after North Korea had contested the validity of the Northern Limit Lines (NLL) set up after the Korean War as maritime borders. The EEZ has not been codified in law and North Korea has never specified its coordinates, making it difficult to determine its specific scope.
The borders of Indonesia include land and maritime borders with Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and East Timor, as well as shared maritime boundaries with Australia, India, Palau, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
