The Emergence and Establishment of the Exclusive Economic Zone

Part A

Generally, the “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ) in the oceanic zone whereby a nation has the exclusive right to conduct fishing, drilling, and other activities. EEZ is defined as a 200- nautical miles stretch of land between our country’s border and the ocean in which Malaysia has the legal authority to engage in fishing, mining, and other economic activities.^[1] Proclamation Number 5030, issued March 10, 1983, created the exclusive economic zone, which is referred to as the “exclusive economic zone of that country.”^[2] As used in this paper, the inner boundary of that zone is defined as a line that is coterminous with the seaward demarcation line of each of the coastal regions, and the outer borderline of that zone is defined as a line drawn in such a way that each point on it is 200 nautical miles or more away from the reference point from whereby the jurisdictional sea is measured.

From the 17th century moving onward, the advancement of sea based trade and the emergent of influential maritime states resulted in a shift paradigm from the concept of locked seas, which was owned by a few nations, to the conception of open waters.^[3] The two fundamental doctrines of maritime laws has been that a thin strip of seaside regions will be in which the restricted sovereign rights of the continental shelf and that the deep seas further than should be easily available to all. They were initially meant to meet and harmonize national defense needs with the liberty of commerce and triangulation, which they have done so successfully. The regulations extended to all operations in both zones, and they effectively created the legislative structure within which fishing and other economic activities were carried out in both areas.

The U.S. made the first significant claim of exclusive sovereignty over ocean biodiversity beyond the regional sea when it issued the Truman Declaration on the continental shelf on Sept. 28, 1945, which applied to the continental shelf.^[4] As stated in the Proclamation, “having regard for the immediacy of preserving and cautiously leveraging its natural assets, the US government deliberates the mineral possessions of the underlying soil and maritime of the continental shelves beneath the international waters but interconnected to the coastlines of the US as a feature of the product to the United States, susceptible to its prerogative, and under control.”^[5] A second Proclamation was also issued simultaneously, this one about coastal fisheries.

While several principles outlined in the Truman Declaration made formed the major part of the Convention, certain Latin American republics were the original pioneers of the doctrine of the EEZ. According to the statement issued by the President of Chile on June 23, 1947, and Decree 781 of the Government of Peru enacted on August 1, 1947, both created marine zones of 200 miles.^[6] “National independence over underwater territories, notwithstanding of their size or depths, and the surrounding oceans extending as far as is required to reserve, reservation, maintain, and exploit natural assets and riches,” according to the Chilean statement. Agreement went on to create the delineation of “protected zones for harpoon and deep-sea fisheries” that would reach up to 200 nautical miles from the coastlines of the territory of Chilean.

Part B

Following the Declaration of President Truman in 1945, the legal system governing the continental shelf has played a significant role in developing customary international legal principles.^[7] The Truman Declaration has been referred to as “immediate customary international law” or, conceivably more appropriately, as a “Grotian instant,” indicating the rapid growth of customary international law in the continent.^[8] It has been more than seventy years since the fundamental notion of coastal region jurisdiction over its continental shelves was acknowledged, but the subject of how far that authority goes into the sea has a more complicated history.

The expansion of such claims and their imprecision and inconsistencies concerning seaward boundaries prompted international attempts to organize the law of the sea keen on agreement law, which lasted from the 1950s through the 1980s.^[9] As a result of these efforts, a single “legal order for seas and oceans” was developed via the Geneva Conventions on the Laws of the Sea (LOS), which were adopted in 1958 and updated in 1982. One of the 1958 accords became the first treaty law interpretation of what comprises the continental shelf as a consequence of the Conventions on the Continental Shelf.

Because of this, the 1958 Resolution defined the continental shelf as “near” to the shore and established two conditions for establishing its superficial limits.^[10] The Two criteria are used to evaluate resource “exploitability,” the most flexible of which is based on water depths of around 200 meters above sea level. Convention of 1958, Article 1, as part of customary international law in its 1969 North Sea ruling, by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).It went on to expound that the continental shelf “encompasses a natural continuance into and beneath the sea from the coast of a coastal country’s land territory.”^[11]

A decade after the Article 1 of the 1958 Convention was accepted by the International Court of Justice as a part of customary international law, and governments began to question the adequacy of this continental shelf definition in light of the growing interest in potentially valuable minerals found beneath the ocean’s surface beyond the borders of national jurisdiction. This is because finding the seaward boundary of the continental shelf had a dual purpose, defining both the shoreline limit of seabed outside national authority and the seaward boundary of the continental shelf. As a result, immediately after the North Sea incident, the United Nations General Assembly declared that the 1958 Convention Article 1 lacks clarity and customary international law on the matter is inconclusive.”^[12]

To show how long customary law and international treaties have interacted on the subject of seabed bounds, go no further than this the reference on the continental shelf boundaries legislation. Customary international law developed the continental shelf system, although there were no regulations establishing the shelf’s precise bounds at the time. Conventions defining continental shelf limits were first drafted in 1958 and recognized by the ICJ as part of customary international law as early as 1969. Additional and more detailed rules including procedural ones pertaining to the outer boundaries were added to the LOS Convention in 1982, replacing the earlier treaty law.

Reference List

Andreone, Gemma. “The exclusive economic zone.” In The Oxford handbook of the law of the sea. 2015.

Proclamation No. 2667, Policy of the United States concerning the Natural Resources of the Subsoil and Sea Bed of the Continental Shelf, September 28, 1945, 10 Fed. Reg. 12303 (1945)

Carroz, J.E. 1982. The living resources of the sea. In The management of humanity’s resources: The Law of the Sea. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 193-207.

Guo, Rongxing. Cross-border resource management. Elsevier, 2021.

Fritz, J. S. (2015). Deep-sea anarchy: mining at the frontiers of international law. The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, 30(3), 445-476.

Oxman, Bernard H. “The preparation of Article 1 of the Convention on the Continental Shelf.” J. Mar. L. & Com. 3 (1971): 245.

Roach, J. Ashley. “Today’s customary international law of the sea.” Ocean Development & International Law 45, no. 3 (2014): 239-259.

Declaration on the Maritime Zone, August 18, 1952, Chile-Peru-Ecuador, 1006 UNTS 323, at 326–27: https://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/TREATIES/CHL-ECU-PER1952MZ.PDF

Sharma, O. P. “India and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” Ocean Development & International Law 26, no. 4 (1995): 391-412.

Judgment, I. C. J. “North Sea Continental Shelf.” ICJ Rep (1969): 213.

Michael P. Scharf, Customary International Law in Times of Fundamental Change: Recognizing Grotian Moments 107–22 (2013).

[1]. Andreone, Gemma. “The exclusive economic zone.” In The Oxford handbook of the law of the sea. 2015.

[2]. 1 Proclamation No. 2667, Policy of the United States concerning the Natural Resources of the Subsoil and Sea Bed of the Continental Shelf, September 28, 1945, 10 Fed. Reg. 12303 (1945)

[3]. Carroz, J.E. 1982. The living resources of the sea. In The management of humanity’s resources: The Law of the Sea. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 193-207.

[4] Andreone, Gemma. “The exclusive economic zone.” In The Oxford handbook of the law of the sea. 2015.

[5] Guo, Rongxing. Cross-border resource management. Elsevier, 2021.

[6] . Declaration on the Maritime Zone, August 18, 1952, Chile-Peru-Ecuador, 1006 UNTS 323, at 326–27

[7]. Proclamation No. 2667, Policy of the United States concerning the Natural Resources of the Subsoil and Sea Bed of the Continental Shelf, September 28, 1945, 10 Fed. Reg. 12303 (1945)

[8]. Michael P. Scharf, Customary International Law In Times Of Fundamental Change: Recognizing Grotian Moments 107–22 (2013).

[9]. Fritz, J. S. (2015). Deep-sea anarchy: mining at the frontiers of international law. The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, 30(3), 445-476.

[10]. Roach, J. Ashley. “Today’s customary international law of the sea.” Ocean Development & International Law 45, no. 3 (2014): 239-259.

[11]. Judgment, I. C. J. “North Sea Continental Shelf.” ICJ Rep (1969): 213.

[12] . Sharma, O. P. “India and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” Ocean Development & International Law 26, no. 4 (1995): 391-412.