Military Activities in the Exclusive Economic Zone: Preventing Uncertainty and Defusing Conflict

This article examines the issue of military activities in the Exclusive Economic Zone from various perspectives: from the perspective of customary international law versus the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; and from the perspective of coastal nations versus maritime nations. This article suggests that to depend only on the dispute resolution mechanisms of the Law of the Sea Convention is to invite ongoing strife as these mechanisms cannot adequately address military activities in the EEZ. It argues for continued international dialogue as a primary means to resolve these issues and suggests that the maritime nations, especially the United States, focus more intently on developing useful modalities to better establish that the balance of rights in the EEZ encompasses military activities in the EEZs of coastal States.