Extension of the Jurisdiction of the Republic of Croatia in the Adriatic Sea

Abstract

The paper deals with the recent changes regarding the maritime jurisdiction in the Adriatic Sea. While its seabed and subsoil were delimited by maritime boundary agreements concerning the continental shelf between the coastal States decades ago, the legal status of the superjacent waters beyond the outer limits of the territorial seas was, until recently, that of the high seas. Although its regime was envisaged in the first Maritime Code (1994), the Exclusive Economic Zone was never proclaimed by the Parliament of Croatia. This situation changed in October 2003 when an Ecological and Fisheries Protection Zone was established by the Parliament of Croatia. After the explanation of the new regime of the Croatian Ecological and Fisheries Protection Zone that is compared with that of the EEZ as regulated in Part V of the UNCLOS (1982), the paper refers to some of the relevant provisions of the second part of the new Croatian Maritime Code (2004) with the title Marine and Submarine Areas of the Republic of Croatia and contains the analysis of various legal aspects and their application to the Protection Zone. Besides giving an overview of the recent developments in the national legislation on the Law of the Sea of Italy and Slovenia, the paper also analyzes the political reasons which caused the postponed implementation of the new regime, as well as relations among Adriatic coastal States and the EU concerning the management of the living resources.