Crossing the line between EEZ and international waters
Since the turn of the century, ecosystems and marine biological diversity conservation became a highlighted reason for strengthening the competences of coastal States upon the oceans. Several central States already show a will to act further. This will reinforce International environment Laws in the consideration of high seas resources.
Nevertheless definition of State's competences upon the sea depends on international Law of the Sea, which appoints and gives a legal status to an exhaustive list of maritime zones. This Law specifies government States rights and duties within these zones, which have been for a long time only economic rights on resources and marines activities.
Which are the legal maritime zones?
For the most basic, here, they start at the coast towards the open ocean.
An imaginary administrative line, the “baseline”, is based on several points along the coast line linked together. All subsequent measurements will be defined from this baseline. This is fundamental as no possible maritime delimitations can be drawn without it.
Once the baseline is set, the first maritime space created is the "inland waters", or waters found inshore of the baseline, covering small areas except in the case of shattered coast; it includes for example the harbour zones. Further starts the "territorial sea", still called "territorial waters" by a few States, extending offshore to a maximum of 12 nautical miles according to the United Nations Convention of Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), thus 22 km maximum, and according to the breadth of the usual practices.
Beyond the territorial sea's outer limit starts the "contiguous zone " in case States have proclaimed one, and then "the exclusive economic zone" (ZEE), larger and well known, whose breadth does not exceed 200 nautical miles (370 km), the maximal authorized size.
Beyond this maximal limit of 200 nautical miles (188 nm of ZEE + 12nm of territorial sea in a hypothesis of territorial sea = 12 nautical miles for example), the ultimate maritime space is called the "high seas". From the coastal zone to the end of the territorial sea, we define “waters under sovereignty of the State"; from the end of territorial sea to the end of ZEE, "waters under jurisdiction" and beyond the ZEE, "areas beyond the jurisdiction (ABNJ)". The first two qualifications are linked with a legal status attributing the strong competences of the coastal State in each situation. The third one is associated with the regime of freedoms of the high seas where all State have the same rights to use the marine waters, despite some obligations.
To reach the Walters Shoal area, located in the high seas zone, we left the territorial sea around the Reunion Island, then crossed the French ZEE, to the high seas and straight to the mount located 32°30S/44°E.
As States often extend some of their activities (i.e. deep-sea fishing, high sea fishing, and scientific research) beyond their maritime spaces, and towards the high seas, it is therefore important to bear in mind these different classifications and associated legal status.
During our project led by France, the status of the pelagic and benthic scientific research is that of a free research in international waters.
As the Walters Shoal seamount does not float on top the ocean, but a geomorphological structure rising from the seabed, more subtle reasoning is needed, but this will the subject of another blog...
