Law of Sea Chapter 4 Dr Abdiaziz Hussein

Law of Sea Chapter 4 Dr Abdiaziz Hussein Hassan Ph. D fellow

Islands

Regime of Islands Natural Islands A natural island, or island, is a naturally formed area of land surrounded by water and is above water at high tide. Island is like a land territory; it has its own internal water, territorial sea, continental shelf, contiguous zone, and exclusive economic zone. Rocks, cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.

The attempt to legally define islands in the international law started from the 1930 Hague Codification Conference, but there was no result since the disagreement to the wording of “normal circumstances and permanently” in the definition of island.

An island is a natural formed area of land, surrounded by water which is above water at high tide. Both inhabited and uninhabited islands play an important role in the delimitation of maritime boundary in accordance with international law.

Each coastal state used islands for their extension of maritime zone. Moreover, the islands are regarded as a relevant circumstance in the judgment of the limitation of maritime boundary between states, which have adjacent or opposite coastlines.

In this case, island is unavoidable to deviate the equidistance or median line. Likewise, islands are the points which are used by coastal states in the establishment of straight baselines. For instance, Britain has used the islets and rocks of the Echrehos and Minquieers groups respectively as influencing the median line delimitation between the Channel Islands and the French coast.

In accordance with the article 7 paragraphs 1 of the 1982 Convention, in localities where the coastline is deeply indented and cut into, or if here is a fringe of islands along the coast in its immediate vicinity, the method of straight baselines joining appropriate points may be employed in drawing the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

In the existing state practice, the coastal states established their straight baselines from the points the outermost part of the outermost islands. In some cases, rock, or islets are used as a point for measuring their baseline. For example, as has been seen, Thailand used Koh Losin, a rock about 1. 5 meter, as a point for measuring its straight baseline.

Artificial Islands An artificial island is a man-made island. It does not emerge through natural process. The artificial island does not have a status like natural island. It means that artificial island does not generate maritime spaces as Natural Island does. As stated in the 1982 Convention, artificial islands, installation and structures do not possess the status of islands.

They have no territorial sea of their own and their presence does not affect the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone, or the continental shelf.

Usually, artificial islands are constructed on the existing reef or on small islets by land reclamation but the recent development are sometimes built in a manner of oil platforms using concrete, steel or stone.

The artificial islands are established for the purposes of exploration, transport and communications, scientific investigation and weather forecasting, recreation, and military. So far, there are many artificial islands have being used such as Chubu Centrair International Airport (Japan), Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Center (China, Harbor Island (USA), and the World Island (United Arab Emirate).

Regarding the rights of the coastal states over the maritime zones which stipulated in the United Nations Convention on law of the Sea, coastal states have the rights to build whatever installations or other structures they wish in their internal water, territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone, continental shelf and also in the high sea.

Moreover, the coastal state has the right to authorize the other states to construct artificial island in its zone. For the land-locked states, since the high sea open to all states, so they have the rights to build artificial islands, installations and other structures in the high sea.

coastal states and the artificial islands’ users are required to take some measures to ensure the safety of navigation such as giving notice about construction, removing all abandoned or disused structures, and establishing an appropriate safety zone around such artificial islands, and the marine environmental effect caused by those constructions has also to take into account.

List of Coastal States’ Claim over Maritime Zones For reference