Mr President, Your Excellencies, good afternoon.

I am Alvin Pateres, appearing on behalf of the applicant,

the Federal Republic of Edrines. For the next 6 minutes, I will be talking about our second submission,
pertaining to the right of the Empire of Ocha to fish within the area of Scor Guyot. If there are no
preliminary clarifications, I respectfully request to proceed. May it please the Court.

Scor Guyot is an underwater volcanic mountain about 120 nautical miles from Edrines’ northern
island. And it is 400 nautical miles from Ocha’s coastline. Ochan trade vessels have used it as a navigation
marker for hundreds of years. Ocha only began fishing in the area of Scor Guyot in the 1850s, and this was
done rarely, due to the close proximity of other fishing sites. Ochan fishing in Scor Guyot was permitted
by the Edrinean king at the time, as a gesture of friendship and respect. While Edrines’ monarchy was
abolished in 1958, the Edrinean government did not outright prohibit Ochan fishing in Scor Guyot because
of the rarity of the practice.

Your Excellencies, Article 57 of UNCLOS provides that the EEZ shall not extend beyond 200
nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. From that
provision, we can infer that the Scor Guyot, which is 120 NM from Edrines’ northern island of Lustrog, falls
within the EEZ of Edrines.

Your Excellencies, in our second submission, I will argue that only Edrinean vessels may fish within
the area of Scor Guyot as it falls within Edrines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. This rule is not overcome by
permission granted over a hundred years ago, given that the rarity of the Ochan fishing in the area was
the only reason it was previously tolerated.

I will establish 2 points:

1. All historical rights of other states within the EEZ of the coastal state have already been
extinguished.
2. The authenticity and propriety of the permission to fish can still be questioned

On the first point, Ocha anchors its historical right to fishing in Scor Guyot when it began fishing there
in 1850s, and prior to that they, along with the other states, including Edrines, have been fishing over the
Ograria Sea for hundreds of years.

However, we submit that the entry into force of UNCLOS in 1994 extinguished such historical right.
Upon entering into UNCLOS, all signatories have subjected to its provisions, one of which is Article 56,
which provides that “In the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State has: (a) sovereign rights for the
purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or
non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil, and with regard to
other activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the production of
energy from the water, currents and winds, (b) the coastal state has jurisdiction with regard to the protect
and preservation of the marine environment.

Your excellencies, we would argue that the permission given back in the 1850s has been
superseded by the agreement as laid down under the UNCLOS with respect to the the coastal state’s right
to its EEZ. Also, the practice of letting Ocha fish there after the effectivity of UNCLOS is nothing but
permission by mere tolerance.
 This tolerance is deemed to have been stopped by Edrines when Edrines performed the positive
act of filing a diplomatic protest and deploying its own naval vessels in 2017 whe Edrinean coast guard
reported the increase in numbers of Ochan fishing trawlers in Scor Guyot.

To further expound our first point, your Excellencies, Article 62 of UNCLOS provides that the
coastal State shall determine its capacity to harvest the living resources of the exclusive economic zone.
Where the coastal State does not have the capacity to harvest the entire allowable catch, it shall, through
agreements or other arrangements and pursuant to the terms, conditions, laws and regulations referred
to in paragraph 4, give other States access to the surplus of the allowable catch.

Your excellencies, may we point out that after the effectivity of UNCLOS and having been
accorded its right to its own EEZ, Edrines has not entered into any agreeements or any other arrangements
with Ocha to fish in its EEZ, apart from just tolerating their practice of fishing there. Again, this tolerance
was deemed to have been stopped when Edrines filed its diplomatic protest and deployed its naval vessels
to stop the Ochan fishing.

Moving on to our second point, both Edrines and Ocha acknowledge the fact that a permission
was given back in the 1850s. The problem here, your excellencies, is that although we acknowledge the
existence of this permission, the authenticity and propriety of this permission to fish can still be subject
to examination. The key question here is this – by virtue of what source of obligation did this permission
come from?

IF the permission was given by virtue of a treaty, we would imagine that Ocha would anchor their
argument on the doctrine of Pacta Sunt Servanda. However, said doctrine admits of some exceptions, one
of those exceptions is the doctrine or principle of Clausula Resbus Sic Stantibus, which allows for a treaty
to become inapplicable because of a fundamental change of circumstances. Article 62 of the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties provides that A fundamental change of circumstances which has
occurred with regard to those existing at the time of the conclusion of a treaty, and which was not
foreseen by the parties may be invoked if the existence of those circumstances constituted an essential
basis of the consent of the parties to be bound by the treaty.

In this case, your excellencies, the rarity of the practice of fishing was an essential basis of the
consent of the Edrinean king to permit the Ochan fishing. This rarity of practice of fishing has been
changed when Ochan fishing drastically increased over the recent years.

The Ograria Sea is a shared water resource connecting the Pananu and Isidro Oceans. Twelve states
have claimed right to the Ograria Sea but no agreements have been concluded regarding the sharing of
resources and the overlaps in claimed waters. Edrinean fishermen have fished in the Ograria Sea for
hundreds of years.

It is important to remember that the EEZ is neither an extension of the sovereignty of the coastal states
from their territorial seas, nor part of the high seas.[38] Within the EEZ, the jurisdiction of the coastal
states is limited to the natural resources as provided in UNCLOS; and for other intents and purposes, the
provisions of the high seas are applicable in the EEZ.[39] Other states have the right to exercise high seas
freedoms in the EEZ of any state, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight.[40]