Entitlement to Maritime Areas of Rocks Which Cannot Sustain Human Habitation or Economic Life of Their Own

Abstract

Article 121 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS Convention) retains the traditional definition of an island as: ‘a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high-tide’ (paragraph 1), and attributes to it the same maritime spaces as the mainland. These spaces are at present: the 12 mile territorial sea (TS), the 24 mile contiguous zone (CZ), the continental shelf (CS) and the 200 mile exclusive economic (or fishery) zone (EEZ) (paragraph 2). However, unlike the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea which gives the same legal status to all natural islands, paragraph 3 of Article 121 limits the legal entitlement of islands to maritime spaces by providing that:‘Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf’.