Law of the sea

When looking at coast zone management, it is very important that you know which laws an area of the sea/coastline abide by, there fore it is vital to understand the different zonations concerning the ocean; http://www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm

• UNCLOS - (1982) United Nations Convention for Law of the Sea, controls everything within this sector, all countries are part of the treaty

taken from http://www.andreekirchner.de/img/UNCLOS.JPG, this diagram shows the zoneations of the different legal zones.

• The high seas are for the benefit of every one, therefore no one owns them. However if an offshore vessel plays part in criminal activity then this is delt with the flag state of the vessel. when using waters owned by countries then, in most cases access is granted as long as they abide by the local laws.
• The contiguous zone is an area where there is a small amount of land laws applying to the ocean, these inclued smuggling and immigration. Foreign fishing vessels have to abide by the common fisheries policy; http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp_en.htm
• The exclusive economic zone (EEZ) within a country has the rights to extract; gas, fish and internal mineral. it can be expanded depending on the location of the Continental shelf
• FUNDUS- is the ownership of the sea bed, between the intertidal zone an the deep sea.