United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

Subject – IR

Context – China to require foreign vessels to report in ‘territorial waters’.

Concept –

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is an international treaty which was adopted and signed in 1982.
UNCLOS is the only international convention which stipulates a framework for state jurisdiction in maritime spaces. It provides a different legal status to different maritime zones.
It replaced the four Geneva Conventions of April, 1958, which respectively concerned the territorial sea and the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the high seas, fishing and conservation of living resources on the high seas.
The Convention has created three new institutions on the international scene:
- the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
- the International Seabed Authority
- the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
UNCLOS as the currently prevailing law of the sea is binding completely.
There are 17 parts, 320 articles and nine annexes to UNCLOS
The law of the sea provides for full rights to nations for a 200-mile zone from their shoreline. The sea and oceanic bed extending this area is regarded to be Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and any country can use these waters for their economic utilization.