Unit 8 Ocean Laws参考Word文件下载.docx

1、Understanding and LearningBackground Information1. A Historical Perspective on the United Nations Conference on the Law of the SeaThe oceans had long been subject to the freedom of-the-seas doctrine - a principle put forth in the seventeenth century essentially limiting national rights and jurisdict

2、ion over the oceans to a narrow belt of sea surrounding a nations coastline. The remainder of the seas was proclaimed to be free to all and belonging to none. While this situation prevailed into the twentieth century, by mid-century there was an impetus to extend national claims over offshore resour

3、ces. There was growing concern over the toll taken on coastal fish stocks by long-distance fishing fleets and over the threat of pollution and wastes from transport ships and oil tankers carrying noxious cargoes that plied sea routes across the globe. The hazard of pollution was ever present, threat

4、ening coastal resorts and all forms of ocean life. The navies of the maritime powers were competing to maintain a presence across the globe on the surface waters and even under the sea.A tangle of claims, spreading pollution, competing demands for lucrative fish stocks in coastal waters and adjacent

5、 seas, growing tension between coastal nations rights to these resources and those of distant-water fishermen, the prospects of a rich harvest of resources on the sea floor, the increased presence of maritime powers and the pressures of long-distance navigation and a seemingly outdated, if not inher

6、ently conflicting, freedom-of-the-seas doctrine - all these were threatening to transform the oceans into another arena for conflict and instability.In 1945, President Harry S Truman, responding in part to pressure from domestic oil interests, unilaterally extended United States jurisdiction over al

7、l natural resources on that nations continental shelf - oil, gas, minerals, etc. This was the first major challenge to the freedom-of-the-seas doctrine. Other nations soon followed suit.In October 1946, Argentina claimed its shelf and the epicontinental sea above it. Chile and Peru in 1947, and Ecua

8、dor in 1950, asserted sovereign rights over a 200-mile zone, hoping thereby to limit the access of distant-water fishing fleets and to control the depletion of fish stocks in their adjacent seas.Soon after the Second World War, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Venezuela and some Eastern Europea

9、n countries laid claim to a 12-mile territorial sea, thus clearly departing from the traditional three-mile limit.Later, the archipelagic nation of Indonesia asserted the right to dominion over the water that separated its 13,000 islands. The Philippines did likewise. In 1970, Canada asserted the ri

10、ght to regulate navigation in an area extending for 100 miles from its shores in order to protect Arctic water against pollution.From oil to tin, diamonds to gravel, metals to fish, the resources of the sea are enormous. The reality of their exploitation grows day by day as technology opens new ways

11、 to tap those resources.In the late 1960s, oil exploration was moving further and further from land, deeper and deeper into the bedrock of continental margins. From a modest beginning in 1947 in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore oil production, still less than a million tons in 1954, had grown to close t

12、o 400 million tons. Oil drilling equipment was already going as far as 4,000 meters below the ocean surface.The oceans were being exploited as never before. Activities unknown barely two decades earlier were in full swing around the world. Tin had been mined in the shallow waters off Thailand and In

13、donesia. South Africa was about to tap the Namibian coast for diamonds. Potato-shaped nodules, found almost a century earlier and lying on the seabed some five kilometers below, were attracting increased interest because of their metal content.And then there was fishing. Large fishing vessels were r

14、oaming the oceans far from their native shores, capable of staying away from port for months at a time. Fish stocks began to show signs of depletion as fleet after fleet swept distant coastlines. Nations were flooding the richest fishing waters with their fishing fleets virtually unrestrained: coast

15、al States setting limits and fishing States contesting them. The so-called Cod War between Iceland and the United Kingdom had brought about the spectacle of British Navy ships dispatched to rescue a fishing vessel seized by Iceland for violating its fishing rules.Offshore oil was the centre of attra

16、ction in the North Sea. Britain, Denmark and Germany were in conflict as to how to carve up the continental shelf, with its rich oil resources.It was late 1967 and the tranquility of the sea was slowly being disrupted by technological breakthroughs, accelerating and multiplying uses, and a super-Pow

17、er rivalry that stood poised to enter mans last preserve - the seabed.It was a time that held both dangers and promises, risks and hopes. The dangers were numerous: nuclear submarines charting deep waters never before explored; designs for antiballistic missile systems to be placed on the seabed; su

18、pertankers ferrying oil from the Middle East to European and other ports, passing through congested straits and leaving behind a trail of oil spills; and rising tensions between nations over conflicting claims to ocean space and resources.The oceans were generating a multitude of claims, counterclai

19、ms and sovereignty disputes.The hope was for a more stable order, promoting greater use and better management of ocean resources and generating harmony and goodwill among States that would no longer have to eye each other suspiciously over conflicting claims.2. Third United Nations Conference on the

20、 Law of the SeaOn 1 November 1967, Maltas Ambassador to the United Nations, Arvid Pardo, asked the nations of the world to look around them and open their eyes to a looming conflict that could devastate the oceans, the lifeline of mans very survival. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembl

21、y, he spoke of the super-Power rivalry that was spreading to the oceans, of the pollution that was poisoning the seas, of the conflicting legal claims and their implications for a stable order and of the rich potential that lay on the seabed.Pardo ended with a call for an effective international reg

22、ime over the seabed and the ocean floor beyond a clearly defined national jurisdiction. It is the only alternative by which we can hope to avoid the escalating tension that will be inevitable if the present situation is allowed to continue, he said.Pardos urging came at a time when many recognized t

23、he need for updating the freedom-of-the-seas doctrine to take into account the technological changes that had altered mans relationship to the oceans. It set in motion a process that spanned 15 years and saw the creation of the United Nations Seabed Committee, the signing of a treaty banning nuclear

24、 weapons on the seabed, the adoption of the declaration by the General Assembly that all resources of the seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction are the common heritage of mankind and the convening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. What started as an exercise to regula

25、te the seabed turned into a global diplomatic effort to regulate and write rules for all ocean areas, all uses of the seas and all of its resources. These were some of the factors that led to the convening of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, to write a comprehensive treaty

26、for the oceans.The Conference was convened in New York in 1973. It ended nine years later with the adoption in 1982 of a constitution for the seas - the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. During those nine years, shuttling back and forth between New York and Geneva, representatives of

27、more than 160 sovereign States sat down and discussed the issues, bargained and traded national rights and obligations in the course of the marathon negotiations that produced the Convention.3. European Economic CommunityThe European Economic Community （EEC） （also known as the Common Market in the E

28、nglish-speaking world and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it in 1993 was renamed as such） was an international organisation created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome.1 Its aim was to bring about economic integration, including a common market, among its six founding members: Bel

29、gium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.It gained a common set of institutions along with the European Coal and Steel Community （ECSC） and the European Atomic Energy Community （EURATOM） as one of the European Communities under the 1965 Merger Treaty （Treaty of Brussels）.Upon the

30、 entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the EEC was renamed the European Community （EC） to reflect that it covered a wider range of policy. This was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the Euro

31、pean Union （EU）, which the treaty also founded. The EC existed in this form until it was abolished by the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, which merged the EUs former pillars and provided that the EU would replace and succeed the European Community. This article deals with the independent international organi

32、sation which existed prior to 1993.4. Customary international lawCustomary international law are those aspects of international law that derive from custom. Along with general principles of law and treaties, custom is considered by the International Court of Justice, jurists, the United Nations, and its member states to be among the primary sources of international law.The vast majority of the worlds governments accept