Status prawny wysp naturalnych i sztucznych w nowym prawie morza
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Date
1984
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Wydział Prawa i Administracji UAM
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The legal status of natural and artificial islands in the new law of seas
Abstract
A problem of defining a notion of "island" and the related question of right to
possess maritime territories was particilarly in focus at the III. Conference on the
Law of Seas particularly in relation to the perspective of setting up exclusive
economic zones. There is over half a million islands on the world ocean differing
widely from each other in area, situation, mineral resources, fauna and flora.
The right of inhabited islands to posess their own economic zones and continental
shelf was not questioned in so far as a substantial part of states declared
themselves in favor of limiting or excluding the right to posess economic zones
or shelf by rocks or uninhabited small elevations. Compromised art, 121.3 provides
that "Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life on their own
shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf". It can be inferred
from that article that rocks retain their right to posess territorial sea and contiguous
zone. Conceding a right to states to set up zone around uninhabited rocks
to protect customs, fiscal immigration and sanitary interests can raise certain
doubts. The Convention does not answer the question whether a state to which an
island belongs can institute its contiguous zone in the exclusive economic zone of
another subject. The very notion used in the wording of art. 121.3 is also not free
of ambiguities. Is a notion of "rocks" to be understood verbally — it would not
then contain coral-reefs, sandbanks as well as other smaller land formations.
Formulations pertaining to inability to sustain human habitation or economic life
can be a subject for discussion too. Making account for area sizes would simplify
the whole problem. It has to be assumed though that differences in opinions in
those questions will eventually find their solution on account of a procedure of
peaceful settlement of disputes adopted in the convention.
The problem gains a large practical importance in relation to the new possibilities
of utilizing artificial islands and installations. The artificial islands can be
divided into four categories: a) constructed on the. bottom and permanently tied to
it, b) embeded on the bottom but movable, c) floating or rather bouyed and d) navigable.
A coastal state has an exclusive right to erect artificial islands on its
territorial sea in the exclusive zone or continental shelf. Right of other states to
construct in economic zone installations and constructions for other than economic
goals is controversial. A new solution adopted in the 1982 Convention is freedom
to erect artificial islands on open seas. The said freedom is limited though by
rights of coastal states in continental shelf on the one hand and on the other
by provisions concerning bottom of seas and oceans recognized to be a common
heritage of hummanity.
In comparison to the 1953 Convention on Continental Shelf, the Convention on
the Law of Seas made a step forward in defining a status of artificial islands,
installations and constructions, Further specifying of numerous questions in the
Convention as well as elimination of the existing loopholes to start with lack of
definitions, questions of jurisdiction, to a detailed regulation of artificial islands
status on the open sea.
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Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
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Citation
Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny 46, 1984, z. 4, s. 79-99