The Malacca/Singapore Straits

Abstract

THE UNITED NATIONS Law of the Sea Conference (UNLOSC) is approaching what seems to be its final stages and is close to reaching an agreement on a new international regime for the oceans, to replace the existing regime established by the 1958 LOSC. One of the major components of the new regime is the rights of through and above international straits. Since some of these straits are of major strategic economic and political importance to the superpowers and other naval powers, the appropriate regime emerged only after difficult bargaining between the coastal states and the naval powers. right of transit passage is defined in Article 38 of the Draft Convention On The Law Of The Sea as follows: Transit means the exercise in accordance with this part of the freedom of navigation and overflight solely for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit of the strait between one part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone and another part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone.' On this issue the Soviet Union and the United States took similar positions, while China adopted the position of the coastal states,2 which demanded the right to regulate