Maritime zones in international law

Abstract

The law of the sea evolved as a compendium of international customary and positive law that governs the ocean space. Many of these norms are enshrined in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The 1982 Treaty is both a norm-creating treaty and a codification of pre-existing customary international law. This chapter discusses the maritime zones under international law. First, those that fall under jurisdiction of coastal State, where it exercises sovereignty or sovereign rights and where the notion of territorial jurisdiction applies. The second part tackles the high seas, which together with the superjacent airspace and the subjacent deep-sea bed constitute the ocean space outside national jurisdiction.