UNCLOS and PCA

Subject: IR

Context:

Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that India is entitled to get compensation in the Italian marines case but can’t prosecute them.

Concept:

• The two Italian marines are accused of shooting down two Indian fishermen in Kerala in 2012.
• The tribunal ruled that the Italian marines enjoyed diplomatic immunity as Italian state officials under the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea.
• Italy had approached the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an arbitral tribunal under the International Court of Justice in 2015, and the matter was heard by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in July 2019.

UNCLOS

• The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is an international treaty which was adopted and signed in 1982.
• 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.

PCA

• The PCA was the first permanent intergovernmental organization to provide a forum for the resolution of international disputes through arbitration and other peaceful means.
• The PCA was established by the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, concluded at The Hague in 1899 during the first Hague Peace Conference.
• The PCA has 122 Contracting Parties.