INTERNATIONA LAW

THE LAW OF THE SEA

Q.1)Define High Seas. Discuss in brief the important provisions of the UNC on Law of Seas 1958 and
UNC 1982. Is the freedom of fishing on High Sea recognized?
A. High seas- According to the International law, the term High seas means all the parts of the sea
that are not included in the territorial sea or inland waters of a country. It is the area beyond the
national jurisdiction.
This rule was formulated by Grotius in his maxim on “Mare Liberum” in 1609 and claimed that the
sea could not be owned by anyone.
As a result, all States supported that ships can go and use freedom of navigation, fight, fishing and
building artificial islands etc. But, the command has been considerably changed under the convention
on the Law of the sea of 1982.
Article 87(2) of the convention lays down the limitation of the general nature on the freedom of high
seas by stating that the freedom of the high seas “shall be exercised with due regard to the interests
of other States in their exercise of the freedom of high seas”.
UNC on Law of seas 1958
four conventions on the law of seas evolved in 1958, namely called Geneva convention on the law of
sea developed but the conventions failed to address several issues like the urgent need to regulate the
usage of minerals of the deep sea beds and high sea.
In 1982, the third UN conference adopted the Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
consisting of 320 articles and 9 Annexes, along with 4 resolution. A significant portion of the
convention was a replica of the old Geneva convention however several new factors were also
dictated which are as follows:

 It expanded the scope regarding the matters of the new legal regime of the deep sea bed and
economic zones.
 The territorial sea now extended up to 12 nautical miles limit.
 In cases of dispute, the convention provides compulsory judicial settlement at the request of
one of the parties.
 The convention also describes the formation of an international tribunal of the law of the sea
for helping in settlements of disputes.
 The convention also deals with the regime of archipelagic states, the waters between the
islands are declared archipelagic waters, where ships of all States enjoy the right of innocent
passage.

Fishing on High Sea

Freedom of the high seas is now recognized to include freedom of navigation, fishing, the laying of
submarine cables and pipelines, and overflight of aircraft.
By the second half of the 20th century, demands by some coastal states for increased security and
customs zones, for exclusive offshore-fishing rights, for conservation of maritime resources, and for
exploitation of resources, especially oil, found in continental shelves caused serious conflicts. The
first United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, meeting at Geneva in 1958, sought to codify
the law of the high seas but was unable to resolve many issues, notably the maximum permissible
breadth of the territorial sea subject to national sovereignty. A second conference (Geneva, 1960) also
failed to resolve this point; and a third conference began in Caracas in 1973, later convening in
Geneva and New York City.